Rose of Tralee 2022: The silly, moving two-night marathon ends (finally) on a note of joy

Amid tears and cheers, group hugs and smiling mugs, Westmeath’s Rachel Duffy has been crowned Rose of Tralee 2022. She is named winner at the end of a typically celebratory and surreal ceremony from north Kerry (RTÉ One, Tuesday, 8pm), which, with its poetry recitals, sean-nós dancing and supporters waving huge, wobbling cardboard signs achieves peak Rose of Tralee early in the evening and never looks back.

“I’m in total shock,” says Duffy, a 23-year-old native of the village of Rosemount and recent graduate from NUI Galway with a BA in drama, theatre and performance studies and Spanish.

“We’ve had a great year in Westmeath, between the Tailteann Cup and the Fleadh Cheoill. Now we have the Rose of Tralee.”

[ Rose of Tralee 2022: Westmeath Rose Rachel Duffy wins first festival since 2019 ]

Fifteen Roses have their moment in the spotlight across a gargantuan two-and-half hour broadcast that follows on from another epic on Monday night. And it doesn’t take long for your Roses bingo card to start to fill.

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There is a piano instrumental courtesy of the Derry Rose, Áine Morrison. The London Rose, Hayley Reynolds, recites a thematically appropriate poem (“The Rose of Tralee ... what glee”) and shares an anecdote about harvesting caviar from fish in Australia.

The story is an eye-opener. As is host Dáithí Ó Sé’s choice of white dinner jacket. It makes him look like the Milky Bar Kid: Midlife Crisis Edition.

He’s in on the joke, though. Before the Cavan Rose, Tara Rogers, recites Bright Blue Rose, Ó Sé remarks that she looks like “someone going to a ball” and he “someone serving tables later”.

A true Rose of Tralee experience is both moving and slightly ridiculous. We get lots of both as the Toronto Rose, Maysen Tinkler, speaks movingly about her autism-spectrum diagnoses and then demonstrates her 1980s-rock chops by bashing out the drum solo to Jump, by Van Halen. It’s Rose of Tralee in a nutshell.

The night is topped off with an outpouring of joy from Duffy, who bursts into tears as her name is read out as this year’s winner. As Rose of Tralee her journey is just beginning. At the end of a marathon two nights, the viewers may be relieved theirs has ended. But the true winner is the contest itself, which, despite the lovely-girl jibes on social media, once again proves itself Irish TV’s ultimate flowering inferno.