'It's beyond expectations,' says Westmeath Rose Grace
“It’s so amazing: it’s above and beyond anything you could imagine,” Grace told the Westmeath Examiner on Monday morning.
“There’s just so much going on: it’s non-stop; you’re busy all day – but it’s all good things. You’re so excited and at each thing, you arrive and it’s a surprise, and the surprises are literally everywhere you go, and the amount of support that you feel off everybody, it’s just out of this world.
“Like,” she continues, “when would you ever have people shouting and cheering for you everywhere you go? It’s so heartwarming; it’s just so overwhelming, it’s amazing.”
At the event, the Roses are all paired with escorts, and Grace, who is a careworker with the Muiríosa Foundation in Mullingar, has been paired with a Meath man, Paddy Peters.
Before attending the event, Grace admits, she worried a bit about assembling all the outfits she would need: “But now that I’m here, it’s so not that important: I’m really raging with myself that I stressed so much trying to get the right outfits, and the headpieces, and all that kind of jazz, but now that we’re here, that is the least of everything that’s going on!”
For her party piece for tonight’s final, Grace will perform a poem and among those who will be shouting loudest to support her will be her parents Willie and Deirdre.
As well as the support of her employer, Grace is grateful to Rachel Duffy, who was the 2002 Rose of Tralee and is also from Westmeath.
“She’s been a great help,” says Grace. “Really, if it wasn’t for her, I probably wouldn’t be as relaxed as I am now. She has been a great support.”
Grace has also been delighted to find there’s such a great sense of camaraderie among the contestants. She points out that entering any scenario in which one finds oneself thrust into the company of 31 other new people can be daunting. But it has been a really friendly and uplifting experience and there are, she says, no cliques, just a genuine sense of warmth among the competitors.
“That was the biggest relief ever because you know you would be a little anxious meeting so many strangers, but by now we’re great friends and it is hard to know that in two days’ time, when the festival ends, we will all have to separate.”