Rose of Tralee: ‘Roses at Mass. Roses going on the merries … Time is frozen, you could say’

Nora Flynn and Siobhán Hickey are holding a banner that says “Araglen Abú”.

They’re in Tralee, Co Kerry, to support Cork Rose Shauna O’Sullivan, who comes from that village.

“There’s 400 people living in Araglen and 300 are here,” says Hickey.

“The other 100 are home milking the cows,” says Shauna’s mother, Ena.

As all of Tralee waits for this year’s Roses to be paraded through town, children hang off lamp-posts, a family line-dances to Uptown Girl and a man dressed as a Keystone cop runs around dishing comedic police brutality with a plastic truncheon.

A three-month-old baby named Alicia is reluctant to speak, but her spokesman/father Jake explains that she’s the niece and goddaughter of Derry Rose Darcy Taylor. He looks at her fondly as she’s nestled in the crook of his arm. “Maybe in 20 years?”

A bunch of people wear Australian cork hats and hold banners saying “G’day Ashling”. They’re the Mayo family and friends of Sydney Rose Ashling Heneghan. The group includes Ashling’s sister Stephanie, her brother Stephen, her mother Stephanie and Stephanie’s boyfriend Stephen.

“My wife reckons we’ve overused the name,” says Stephen.

Stephanie is Ashling’s twin and the following day she and Ashling dress up identically to see if the other Roses and escorts can tell them apart. There are actually four Roses with twins. New York’s Billie Cooper has a twin called Lucy, who is about to start a politics master’s in UCD. She’s here supporting Billie instead of attending the Democratic National Convention. She’s not sure she’d be able for the Rose of Tralee, she says. “I’m not quite as outgoing as Billie.”

After an alarming number of marching bands for a supposedly neutral country, Daithi Ó Sé arrives on a float, squeezed beside outgoing Rose of Tralee Róisín Wiley, 1974 Rose of Tralee Maggie Flaherty, who said she “hadn’t even heard of the Rose of Tralee” before entering, but “someone spotted my name in a [New York] modelling agency list”; and mayor of Tralee Mikey Sheehy.

The floats upon which the 32 Roses sit and wave are themed. They include a rainbow float, a disco float, a Fireman Sam float, a Frozen float featuring Olaf the snowman (“I LOVE YOU OLAF!” shouts a small boy followed by: “I MISS YOU OLAF!”) and a mushroom-themed float in case you thought you weren’t tripping.

To picture the escorts, imagine every kind of man crammed into a suit one size too small. They walk alongside each float like secret-service agents (albeit secret-service agents more likely to intercept a pint than a bullet).

The parade finishes at a big stage at Ashe Memorial House. Everyone lines up on stage. The escorts and rosebuds (radicalised child Roses) line up before it. Tenor Noel Pearson sings The Rose of Tralee to Róisín Wiley, the outgoing Rose. A teenage girl standing nearby pumps her fist. “Yes! The Rose of Tralee song. I love this,” she says.

Then the Roses, the escorts, the rosebuds and Daithi Ó Sé dance to YMCA, as our people have done since famine times. The whole thing is repeated the following day.

On Sunday morning, nine Roses were greeted by little girls seeking autographs after Mass at St John’s Church. Susan O’Gara, daughter of chief executive Anthony O’Gara, herds the Roses and escorts to the parish hall for tea and cake. “We grew up pretending to be Roses in the back garden, taking it in turns to be Gay Byrne,” she says. (Anthony O’Gara is absent from the festival after recent heart surgery.)

Escort Ódhran Heelan, who works in finance, is clutching the New York Rose’s golden clutch-bag. “I think I’ll pick one up,” he says. “It suits me.”

Long-time Rose volunteer Paul O’Donnell explains that he likes the Rose because “it’s still old fashioned … Roses at Mass. Roses going on the merries … Time is frozen, you could say.”

A trip back to the Meadowlands Hotel, the Roses’ base, is steered by bus driver John O’Shea, who has been driving Roses since 2004. Each year former Roses return and he doesn’t always recognise them.

“They should keep wearing the sashes. It makes things easier,” he says.

On the bus, some escorts sing Dirty Old Town. People chat. Some close their eyes for a rest. Derry Rose Darcy Taylor massages her right foot.

“A lot of walking,” she explains.

She’s an assistant producer with BBC Foyle.

“It’s odd,” she says, “to hear people say to me the same things I say to calm people down when I’m interviewing them.”

She loves the community spirit of it all, but notes that it’s also a very heightened experience.

“This isn’t a normal position to put yourself into,” she laughs. “This isn’t ordinary life.”