Madam, - The Rose of Tralee International Festival is a celebration of Irish culture and heritage and Rose selection specifically is a celebration of what it means to be a woman in the context of being Irish or having Irish ancestry.
All Roses are intelligent, articulate, thoroughly modern and all have something to say - far from the wilting wallflower image painted by Suzanne Breen in your edition of August 22nd.
If the festival is indeed as jaded as Ms Breen suggests, why do 200,000 people visit Tralee, over 750,000 people watch Rose selection live on television and some 30,000 people outside Ireland run Rose selection centres around the world?
Why doesn't Ms Breen join us for this year's festival and experience the reality of Rose selection in 2003 and why the Rose of Tralee Festival is worthy of its title as a unique celebration of Tralee, Kerry, Ireland and Irishness in the context of a modern world? - Yours, etc.,
SIOBHAN HANLEY,
Chief Executive,
Rose of Tralee
International Festival,
Ashe Memorial Hall,
Tralee,
Co Kerry.