The Rose of Tralee 2006 : è australiana

E' il più popolare concorso di bellezza femminile dell'Isola, seguitissimo anche dagli irlandesi all'estero.
Quest'anno la vincitrice è australiana.

Liberissimi di dire





Aussie Rose Crowned in Tralee

By Georgina Brennan

“I HAVE to pinch myself,” gushed 23-year-old Queensland Rose Kathryn Feeney as she was crowned International Rose of Tralee 2006.

At the end of the second night of the 48-year-old festival, the brunette, whose grandfather James Feeney left Ferbane, Co. Offaly in 1914 for Australia, was wide-eyed with surprise when her name was announced live over a streaming Internet and to millions of Irish people watching on television on Tuesday evening.

Though New York Rose Melissa Teelin wowed the crowd with her New York rhyme in which she took off a broad New York accent, the win was expected for the Australian, who was the bookie’s favorite once the competition began.

Feeney is a veterinary nurse and loves sick pets. That she has a diabetic cat made it easier for Rose host Ray D’Arcy to remember her name.

But she stood out of the 30 Rose hopefuls that came from as far away as Darwin, Dubai, Perth, New Orleans, New York, New Zealand, Philadelphia and Boston.

An entourage of 21 family members, including parents, Ruth and Frank, traveling from Australia and the U.S., accompanied Feeney to Tralee.

“It is a big holiday for us, it’s the first my dad has taken in 30 years,” Feeney told newspapers.

“My grandfather James was born in Ferbane in 1893 and emigrated to Australia in 1914. He joined the army there and came back to Ireland to fight for the British in World War I. After the war he then returned to Ireland to fight against the British. He then returned to Australia where he met a German lady, whom he married and settled down in Brisbane. My dad still lives in the house he was born in,” she said.

Feeney visited Offaly in 2004 with her brother Patrick.

“We are related to Mahers and Doyles in the area. Pat Brassil was my grandfather’s friend, he even loaned him the £20 for the fare to Australia, so Pat’s family were very good to us when we visited,” she said.