Ms Lisa Manning (22), the Rose representing Perth, Australia, became the 43rd Rose of Tralee last night.
Her party piece, a poem, written by her mother Valerie and loosely based on the lines from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet . . ." was warmly received by the live audience in the Dome.
Ms Manning is the second Rose from Perth to win the title. A shoe shop manager, she was an outsider in the competition, although her odds had lessened from 20/1 to 15/1 when her escort, Mr Enda Confrey, backed her.
A self-confessed chocoholic, and a fluent speaker of Chinese Mandarin, Ms Manning was taken completely by surprise, she told reporters afterwards.
"I am dumbfounded. I was not expecting this at all. I was watching his lips [Marty Whelan] and he said Perth, and I thought `no way'."
Perth last won the title in 1995.
Ms Manning's father, Michael, a plumbing contractor, comes from Kilbride, Co Meath, and her mother is from Sunderland.
Ms Manning's involvement with shoes places her right in the Rose line - the original rose for whom the song was written in 1840 was the daughter of a shoemaker.
However, the humble origins of the first Rose of Tralee, a shoemaker's daughter to whom a Protestant gentleman poet wrote haunting lyrics before the height of the Famine, have not been much in evidence over the past five days in Kerry.
Hats, horse-racing and helicopter rides are now a natural part of the £1 million festival which brings in £20 million and whose contestants this year are "a very professional bunch of roses", according to festival president, Mr Kevin McCarthy.
But the Rose of Tralee has gone back to its roots this year with a historical tour of the 160-year-old sites of the story behind the rose.