Sir, - It was to be expected, the hatchet-job done on the Rose of Tralee extravaganza by your TV critic, Eddie Holt (The Irish Times, August 30th). The "roses" were too wholesome for him - no whiff of drug abuse or promiscuity, no hint of sleaze; 1950s sensibilities rather than the swinging liberalism of the 1990s. How boring! For him, it was a "carnival of naffness", "cringe-inducing", "contrived colleen coyness" which "bears scant relationship to the real Ireland", etc.Funnily enough, it is precisely because the lovely girls' lifestyle seems indeed to have scant relationship to today's Ireland that viewers watch the contest and love it. And long after Mr Holt's jaundiced pen is at rest, the contest will go on, losing nothing of its undoubted appeal. So long may the Roses flourish in Tralee! - Yours, etc.,VERA HUGHES,Moate,Co Westmeath.