This year, they could call it Big Sister, after the summer's hottest thing on television, Channel 4's Big Brother. Twenty-eight Roses! One winner! You decide! Now that would be a 21st century take on the Rose of Tralee.
Viewers phone in their nominations, getting to choose the last gal to be evicted from the Dome, based on the sartorial merits of the frocks, how many people they've brought with them, how off-key they sing, or whatever you're having yourself. And why not? It would be a bit of fun at least, something the two-night show could do with a lot more of.
Consider the acromyn of the Rose of Tralee: R-O-T. If it has become a phenomenon over time, it is largely due to the fact that RTE has kept it that way, with its six-hour plus live television coverage every year. RTE and ROT have more than a three-letter acroymn in common: they have a lengthy symbiotic relationship with each other, co-dependent entities.
The show always defends itself by pointing to its big TAM ratings, which presumably go some way towards consoling RTE about the media drubbings it has consistently received over the years. This year, RTE is also making a 55-minute behind-the-scenes documentary at the festival, tracking four Roses. It will be aired in September: and begs the title The Last Rose of Summer.
No, the ROT is too entrenched a formula now to be meddled with. The presenter may have changed, but the format will never change; Marty will remove shoes for dancing Roses; ball dresses will magically convert into short high-kicking friendly skirts; someone will recite a Yeats poem, either The Lake Isle of Innisfree or Had I The Heaven's Embroidered Cloths. Do the bookies take bets on the party pieces? They should. It would surely be a fine little earner. No, some year the festival will just be axed, and that will be the end of it.
A former escort, now a prominent figure in the Irish arts media, still watches "bits of the show" for a kitsch kick when it is aired each year. "It doesn't have the thrill of Eurovision, though," he explains. "They should have runners-up, and public voting." He describes the current interview format as "seeming so scripted. It used to be a lot more spontaneous. Now every ad lib seems as if it has been rehearsed."
To be an escort these days, you have to get a company to sponsor you "to the tune of £1,500". Presumably to the tune of the Rose of Tralee. You have to be able to dance, or willing to take lessons. You're asked about your education, language skills, and reasons why you'd want to be an escort. Of course, like most Irish festivals, the Rose of Tralee in its wider context is just an excuse for a huge party. Drink, as they say, is taken. Many of those who come to Tralee for the buzz and the bar extensions will never get within a sash's roar of a Rose. They come to the Rose of Tralee, because, like Everest, it's there.
Meanwhile, single mammies need not apply to the festival. Deflowered Roses Not Welcome, a decision defended in 1996 by the festival's chief executive, Liam Twomey, who explained that "the competition was based on the legend of a single woman, who had no children". Ah yes, but in what century was that song originally written? Times do change, but not apparently, in the time capsule of the Festival Dome.
So how is the festival seen abroad? A past New Zealand Rose, Linda McFetridge, gave an interview to the Dominion, a Wellington newspaper, about her time in Tralee. "The people love it, because it isn't a beauty pageant, it's a chance to reaffirm the Irish culture. Many of the girls do Irish dances or can speak a bit of Gaelic." Her impression of us? "Many of the rural people all say they have seen or heard banshees and they say when you are out on the fields you can hear the music of the fairies . . . It doesn't matter how poor they may be, they are still always smiling and laughing." The year of this interview? 1995.
This year, there has been a very public spat between the official festival committee and the British-based festival committees. Last year, the festival committee asked all Rose of Tralee centres around the world to cough up £1,500 as a contribution to this year's event. Things got thorny. Petals blew in the wind. The result? A hybrid Rose is created.
This year, we won't be seeing the Leeds Rose, Midlands Rose, Wales Rose, London Rose or Manchester Rose. They had been chosen at their various centres, but the committees decided not to send them to Tralee, so miffed were they about the request for money. The British committees got together and decided to run their own Irish Rose Ball, helped out by the Irish Post, a newspaper for the Irish in Britain.
Earlier this month in London, the Midlands Irish Rose, Marie Cleary (25), was chosen as the Irish Rose. She will now represent Irish women in Britain at a number of engagements over the year. And she may not have been in Tralee when she won, but she kept with tradition by weeping when she was chosen.
The first night's coverage of the Rose of Tralee tonight on RTE One, at 8 p.m.