13 Things Guaranteed To Happen During The Rose Of Tralee Tonight

It’s the last week of August, which means one thing and one thing only: The Rose Of Tralee.

The televised finals kick off tonight August 22 at 8pm on RTÉ One, so prepare to feel that unique combination of excitement, bewilderment, shame and slight envy that you only get once a year.

As with every year, there’s a whole slew of things guaranteed to happen as Daithí Ó Sé and the 32 Roses who’ve made it to the live TV finals take to the stage…

1. At least one Rose will have qualified thanks to a great-grandmother born in an Irish village no-one’s ever heard of
Ballynasheenagh? Ah yes, that heaving metropolis.

2. Someone will have brought their entire townland along with them to the Festival Dome
“There’s my mammy and daddy there next to my sixteen second cousins…”

3. The rivalry between Roses’ families for the best banner will be FIERCE
The Battle of The Banners should be a televised competition in itself.

4. One Rose will definitely be wearing her Irish dancing poms under her dress for the talent bit
Saves her changing into them, like.

5. And there will of course be one dress-to-skirt transition
“If you could just hold that there Daithí” *whips off bottom half of dress*

6. At least one contestant will start crying during her song
There’ll be no poems though this year though. BOO.

7. Plus there’ll obviously be countless songs dedicated to late grannies and nanas
“She couldn’t be here tonight…”

8. But there’ll hopefully be a rap/hip-hop number to cheer things up a bit
We’ve also been promised a cupcake baking demo, a science lesson, a sandwich making tutorial… and a kickboxing class.

9. Someone in the audience will be caught struggling to clap along in time to the Irish dancing music
We’re an enthusiastic nation, but we’re not the best when it comes to rhythm, let’s be fair.

10. At least one Escort will be slagged mercilessly for being too much of a charmer
Dirty dog.

11. Someone in your office/house will have a bet on for the winning Rose
And they’ll be well gutted when they lose.

must hurt knowing theres better odds of the pres of usa declaring that aliens exist than you winning rose of tralee pic.twitter.com/MjDiil7Gxj

— Patrick (@PrayForPatrick) August 22, 2016

12.The entire nation will fall in love with at least one contestant
And there’ll be WAR if she doesn’t win.

13. And we’ll all take a sort of skewed Irish pride in watching people from other countries trying to figure out what on earth the Rose Of Tralee is really about
“So it’s like a beauty pageant?” “NO!”
“Oh, is it a talent competition?” “Christ, no.”
“Is it like the Eurovision, but only with Irish people?” “Just leave it. Doesn’t matter.”

We’ll be live-tweeting the #RoseOfTralee from 8pm tonight… follow us @stellarmagazine!

• daithi o se
• rose of tralee
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