The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
Clare will have its first representative taking to the Kerry stage since 2006 for the annual International Rose of Tralee Festival.
The excitement is building for 25-year-old Clare Rose Marie Donnellan from Newmarket-on-Fergus as she prepares for her debut in Tralee.
Marie will begin a tour of Ireland with the other roses on Monday, which will take her to her home county on Friday next before arriving in Tralee for the start of the international festival.
Marie was selected as the Clare Rose in the middle of April, and went on to the regional final in Portlaoise over the June Bank Holiday Weekend. She was successful in receiving one of the six places for Irish representatives. Nine counties will be represented in the live finals, which take place on August 19 and 20 in Tralee, with Cork, Dublin and Kerry Roses automatically through.
Clare’s Rose is currently working with Apple in Cork and is the first local rose to make it through to the live finals of the international festival since 2006, when Theresa Roseingrave represented the county.
She will be joined by two others who will raise the flag for the county, including Arizona Rose Holly Nordquist. Holly is from Phoenix but has connections to Ennis, with which the county town is twinned. She is a 21-year-old senior at Grand Canyon University, and is due to graduate in December with an honours Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in theatre and drama plus all prerequisites for nursing.
Meanwhile, Pete O’Brien from Ogonnelloe, but who now lives in Dublin, will participate as an international escort. It will be decided later this week which rose he will accompany.
Speaking about the competition, Ciarán O’Connell, chairman of the Clare Rose of Tralee Centre, commented, “We are so proud of how far Marie has come so far, it has been a pleasure working with her in the preparation for the festival.”
“She is a true lady and will not only do her family and friends proud but the whole Banner County. We hope the whole county will get behind her,” he said.
