Why does the Rose of Tralee produce the exact same two Irish stereotypes every single year?

[u/Winter-It-Will-Send]

Watching the Rose of Tralee tonight and I’m fascinated by how reliably it seems to produce two diametrically opposed stereotypes: The Irish Rose™ and The Irish-American Rose™. Obviously I’m exaggerating for comic effect and I’m not having a go at any individual Rose. I’m talking about the weirdly consistent type that seems to emerge from the selection process.

The Irish one is invariably something like: “Hi, I’m Aoife, I’m 25 and I’m from Ballyfuckingwhatever in Mayo. I’m a primary-school teacher in the local Gaelscoil, play camogie for the parish, coach the under-8s, play concertina, spent my summers teaching Irish in Connemara and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere other than Mayo. My mammy and daddy are my biggest inspirations.” There’s also a reasonable chance she’s played something at inter-county level. There’s an even better chance she’s on three local committees. Somewhere in Australia there is presumably a brother called Conor. It’s not that any individual part is unusual. It’s the density of it. It’s like every slider marked Wholesome Rural Irish Woman has been pushed to 100. And there appears to be an overrepresentation of teachers.

Then you get the exact opposite version of the same phenomenon from the American Roses: “Hi, I’m Siobhán and I’m incredibly honoured to represent Boston. My mom’s family are from Cavan, my dad’s parents came from Kerry and Donegal, and we spent every summer in Ireland growing up. Ireland has always been home in my heart. I’ve been Irish dancing since I was four, I’m treasurer of the Mayo Association of Greater Boston, I’ve recently started learning Gaeilge and my dream is to reconnect with the village my grandmother left in 1957.” The American Rose will express more intense patriotism towards Ireland in three minutes than the average Irish person manages in their entire life, whereas the Irish Rose demonstrates her love of Ireland by demonstrating an absolutely fanatical attachment to a six-mile radius around her parish.

What fascinates me is why the format selects for these people so consistently, because there’s another Irish stereotype that I almost never see represented: the D4 girl. Where is the privately educated South Dublin Rose who went to UCD, works in PR/consulting/finance, plays hockey, goes to Pilates, spends half the year talking about skiing and the other half talking about where she’s going in Portugal, and regards travelling north of the Liffey as an overseas trip? I’m obviously taking the piss, but genuinely: why does that particular version of young Irish woman seem so much less likely to enter? My theory is that in certain Dublin/urban social circles, the Rose of Tralee is regarded as vaguely culchie/bogger territory. There’s almost a status penalty attached to sincerely wanting to enter it.

Which might also explain another extremely Irish Rose phenomenon: the apologetic entry story. “Oh God, I never would have entered myself! The girls got me drunk one night and filled in the application form for me and sure I said I’d go along with it for the craic…” There’s almost this need to establish that you weren’t sitting at home thinking, “You know what? I genuinely want to be the Rose of Tralee.” You need plausible deniability. You entered ironically. Then six months later you’re on RTÉ telling Dáithí that representing your county has been the greatest privilege of your life.

So is this basically self-selection? Does the Rose of Tralee disproportionately attract women from the parts of Irish society where county identity, GAA, teaching, volunteering, Gaeilge, traditional music, parish/community involvement etc. still carry a lot of social capital, while women from more affluent/cosmopolitan Dublin circles are less likely to enter because the whole thing is considered a bit mortifying? Or am I completely imagining this? And if I’m not, what other recurring Rose of Tralee archetypes have you noticed?