50 years of the Rose of Tralee

The 50th International Rose of Tralee selection will be broadcast live from the festival dome. This year the event takes place on Tuesday August 25th and Wednesday August 26th. Ray D'Arcy returns for the fifth year in a row to host the hugely popular television event and will interview the 32 roses over the two nights. Last year Aoife Kelly, a 23-year-old occupational therapist from Tipperary was crowned the 49th Rose of Tralee, so tune to find out which of the Roses will become the 50th Rose of Tralee. The event will be broadcast on RTÉ One on Tuesday and Wednesday evening from 8pm with a break for the Nine O'Clock News. Meanwhile on Monday night, there's a special documentary looking back over five decades of Roses. Five Decades of Roses is a new RTÉ television documentary celebrating this major anniversary in Irish life. The story of the Rose Festival is told through the eyes of five Roses (one from each decade). They include the 1959 Rose, Alice O'Sullivan; Orla Burke, the 1977 Rose; Brenda Hyland, Rose of 1983; Kirsty Flynn, the 1993 Rose; and Roisin Egenton, the Millennium Rose of Tralee, crowned in August, 2000. Dublin-born Alice O'Sullivan, the 1959 Rose, was first to take the crown. She had to leave her job with Aer Lingus because of the marriage ban, but has since gone back to college - studying, and then lecturing in, Environmental Psychology. She now coaches skiing to disabled students. Almost 20 years later, Orla Burke was the 1977 Rose. One of 12 siblings, Orla worked first as a secretary, moved on to nursing and now studies psychotherapy. Married with 3 children, she's just written her first novel. Brenda Hyland, a Tipperary-born Rose, was the winner in the Rose of Tralee's Jubilee year of 1983. A trainee ban garda when she won, Brenda later spent some time away from the Gardaí, trying her hand as an air hostess, beauty therapist and model. Now back with the Gardaí, she works in community policing. Midlands, U.K. Rose Kirsty Flynn was crowned Rose of Tralee in 1993. With a business head on her shoulders, Kirsty saw the competition as a potential boost to her hoped-for Celtic Tiger career. She now works in Marketing in London, is married to a fellow Irishman and mother to a baby girl.with another on the way! She has also been a Rose judge. The 'Millennium Rose' of 2000 was New Jersey-born Róisín Egenton, who represented New York. From an Irish emigrant background, Róisín didn't know a lot about the competition when she entered the New York selection. A regular visitor to Ireland, Róisín made the big decision to make it her long-term home after her Rose year. She studied at NUIG and now works for the HSE in Kilkenny.