Roses by other names

AT least he got a bit more notice this year. Last year Derek Davis had only six days to rustle up a tux and step into Gay Byrne's well worn shoes as presenter of the Rose of Tralee.

Despite some pre-announcement speculation as to the identity of this year's presenter, yesterday's announcement that once again Derek will be the front man in the Dome in August came as no big surprise after all he came through last year's every public baptism of fire with the all important TAM ratings intact.

He's delighted of course. The two night TV show catapults him out of Live at Three's cosiness and into the big league and on last year's performance at least, he's certainly up to the job. There are 33 Roses in the running for this year's title and the big man's interviewing technique will be smart not smarmy.

"You don't start talking silly girlie talk to these women, they'd leave you for dead," he says, adding that most of them have degrees, are in college or run their own businesses. "You don't patronise people like that. They're as tough as old boots and I mean that in the most complimentary way."

The contestants' intelligence and ability to handle themselves is his answer to criticism of the festival which he attributes to "PC Dublin 4 men". "These women are not in Tralee because of some form of white slavery," says Derek, who is so laid back he can say this sort of thing without sounding the least bit defensive. "If anyone has any PC criticism to make, I'd point them in the direction of the women themselves, they'd soon put them right."

All the publicity last year made it seem that Gay Byrne had been presenting the annual emigrant fest forever or at least for the past 37 years. Not so. Kevin Hilton, Brendan O'Reilly, Terry Wogan and even Kathleen Watkins have all done at least one stint (Wogan's was in the mid 1960s).

There was never a chance that this year's presenter might have been a woman. Multi talented Eurovision presenter Mary Kennedy's name was bandied around in the media's pre-announcement speculation. But, according to the president of the 60 member festival committee, Seamus O'Halloran, "a woman interviewing a woman, no matter who she is, lacks a certain type of magic".

Television viewers see about four hours of the festival but it goes on for a full week from August 23rd to 29th. Entertainment on offer includes live gigs bay The Corrs, The Saw Doctors, Stockton's Wing, OTT and Brendan Keeley. The committee has also spent £100,000 on setting up a programme of free street entertainment.

For Tralee, the festival means big business. According to Seamus O'Halloran it's worth somewhere in the region of £10-12 million to the town and to make sure the festival grows the committee has recently appointed Liam Twomey as its first chief executive the only paid position in an event previously run exclusively by volunteers.

As Noel Smyth, the RTE producer responsible for the show, says. "It's got nothing to do with paddywackery or Ballymagash. It's about coming home and that is simply why it's still so popular."