Kicking off at 8pm this evening on RTÉ 1, 32 Roses and escorts will take the stage at MTU’s Sports Academy in Kerry for this year’s Rose of Tralee.
The variety show/beauty pageant/lovely girl competition’s first selection night will see 18 roses performing, followed by another 17 taking to the stage tomorrow night.
Both the winning rose and the winning escort will be announced at the end of tomorrow night’s broadcast.
Radio and social media star Carl Mullan, who will perform the role of Master of Ceremonies at the 2025 Rose of Tralee Festival, says being an escort in the 2016 iteration was “the hardest work I have ever done”.
READ MORE
“I remember you’d get to bed at 2 o’clock in the morning having just been fulfilling your escort duties and then you would be up at 7 o’clock in the morning”, the 2fm host says.
“Everyone thinks you are off having the craic in town – but I remember thinking: ‘Where is the time for this? There is none!’"
Mullan acted as an escort for both the 2016 Donegal Rose and the Scotland Rose, as that year the organisers hosted 65 roses from each Rose Centre rather than the customary 32 which rotate among Rose Centres.
“I used to work on the Nikki and Jenny show on 2fm as a reporter and we did a segment called Crash Test Dummy.
“I used to do all kinds of everything. I ate the world’s hottest chicken wings, I did a downhill ice-skating event, I did a downhill mountain-biking race. I would throw my hat into anything and as a joke one year it came up in conversation: ‘You should try and apply to be a Rose escort and see how far you get.’
“I went as an escort/reporter in 2016, but listen, I was a fully fledged escort. Let me tell you everyone thinks that those lads are down here for a jolly and that they are doing nothing. I did it once, never again. It was way too much work than I was able for. I was exhausted after dealing with it.”
However, in spite of his hard work, the presenter looks back on his time as an escort fondly: “It was lovely getting to know all the people and seeing the inner workings of the Rose of Tralee. I only knew it as a TV show but actually coming down and realising it is a festival and that there is such a community element to it; the parades and seeing the joy that it brings to people, was amazing.”
“I think we should always make space for something like that” Mullan says.
Like the Sistine Chapel
Hailing from San Francisco, Leo McFadden is thoroughly enjoying his experience as an escort.
“It’s incredibly hard to describe [being an escort] without experiencing it. It’s like going to a major historical site like the Sistine Chapel: you walk in to the room. You can’t really describe the feeling but when you go in there it is incredible.
“It is something that hits you in a way that you can’t experience without doing it.
“That’s the best way I can describe it honestly,” says the security contractor.
Mr McFadden was inspired by his sister who was the 2023 San Francisco Rose, saying “seeing it from a third-person view was absolutely incredible”.
In terms of how he views the role of escort, Mr McFadden says: “If the roses are the flowers, I think we [the escorts] are the stem.
“We do what we can to support them so they can flourish, and each rose is unique. Each escort has to have a unique approach to do that, but it’s an absolutely once-in-a-lifetime experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”
Also from California is Seamus Ruiz-Earle, a venture capitalist and the escort to the 2025 Luxembourg Rose.
Mr Ruiz-Earle says he stumbled on the festival “out of the blue” while visiting family in Kildare in August last year. He looked up what was happening in Ireland during that month and came across the Rose of Tralee.
“The more I did research, the more I wanted to be involved and being an escort seems like the best possible way to do that,” the CEO says.
In terms of trying to describe the festival to American friends, Mr Ruiz-Earle says: “No one understands. From an American perspective, there isn’t anything like it.“
However, the appeal of being an escort for Forbes 30 under 30 tech alum is in making connections with Irish people his own age, rather than just family members.
“I come back two or three times a year to visit family but I’ve never had friends in the country.”
“The opportunity to call each of the 32 lads, and now the 32 Roses friends, is really something that I look forward to.”
He says he is also excited to be “able to shoot a message into a group chat and go out and have a great time when I’m back in the country and make even more memories”.
With so many young men keen to apply to be escorts, would there ever be an argument for a gender-flipped Rose of Tralee?
Mullan says that such a competition would “probably a lot less inspiring”.
“But listen maybe they should give it a go. I can guarantee I would not be applying to take part in that myself.”
