Tonight, the pinnacle of the Kerry glitz calendar takes place, as the first eighteen ladies take to the Dome stage for the 59th Rose of Tralee International Festival 2018.

Dáithí Ó Sé hosts the show for an impressive 9th time and as we found out on this morning's Breakfast Show, he's rarin' to go!

We gave the hunky gaeilgeoir a call to hear all about his preparation and how he gets his game face on for a hectic couple of nights on stage (not to mention the build-up over the past few weeks). And as always, he was in flying form.

Iano also wanted to learn more about the revolutionary 'sauna suit' Dáithí bought to help accelerate his shedding of a few unwanted pounds, and it sounds like we all should be using one. 

But will the Kerryman be able to slip in the special buzzword we gave him, over the next two nights? He was up for the challenge!

The Rose of Tralee kicks off tonight @8pm on RTÉ One with the second show starting at the same time tomorrow. 

Let the pale moon rise...

You can listen to the chat in full by pressing the play button in the image at the top of the page.