We have a winner! The 2018 Rose of Tralee is Waterford Rose Kirsten Mate Maher.
But perhaps the real winners of the night were Gillian Whelan and her two friends from Clondalkin in Dublin, who every year, dress up in their wedding dresses and score the Roses from home, while having heaps of craic!
Thanks for having me on this morning lads! Love these two Roses too - funny gals! #Roseoftralee @DaveTodayFM @DermotTodayFM @MariaDevereux pic.twitter.com/MB8jUcUM4p
— Gillian Whelan (@gillwork1) August 22, 2018
Friendship goals to be honest.
Speaking to Dermot & Dave, Gillian said the tradition stared a few years ago when her friends arrived over to her house, unannounced, 'I've a couple of mad friends and last year they arrived to my house, asking me where my wedding dress was, it was in my Mam's house, under the spare bed.
'We got the wedding dress, went to one of their houses and got one of their husbands to help us put the wedding dresses on, and we scored the Roses from start to finish.'
Scoring the roses from the comfort of our home #RoseOfTralee @RTEOne @rte pic.twitter.com/nDlM7msxpT
— Gillian Whelan (@gillwork1) August 21, 2018
'It was good fun, it was nice to put the dress on! We have a couple of scoring categories, the dress, how much craic they're having with Dáithí, we score them on their talent (if they do one, if they don't do one they get zero) and whether we want to have pints with them or not.'
Our tradition of watching #RoseOfTralee in our wedding gúnas !!! @RTEOne pic.twitter.com/9Y0LpeKNo8
— Gillian Whelan (@gillwork1) August 21, 2018
We need to make this a thing for next year!
To catch the full chat press the play button on the image at the top of this page!