Anne-Marie Lynch crowned as New York Rose of Tralee for 2012

Fifteen girls stepped out to compete for New York Rose title on Sunday

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Anne-Marie Lynch the New York Rose of Tralee for 2012, pictured last Sunday

Photo by Rose of Tralee NY

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This past Sunday was my second time competing for a local Rose title, and what a day it was. The events of the day brought myself and 14 other accomplished and ambitious women together for a day that solidified blossoming friendships.

At the end of the day, Annemarie Lynch was crowned the New York Rose for this upcoming year, a decision from the judges that was described as “quite hard”.

The Rose of Tralee festival has been held annually in August in Tralee, Co Kerry since 1959. The festival brings together women of Irish descent from around the world to compete for the title of Rose of Tralee, the winner of which will embark on a worldwide tour promoting Irish culture and charity.

The weeklong festival hosts parades, musical acts, and gala balls as a tourism catalyst in Tralee. The New York Rose has a strong tradition of winning, with four Roses claiming the title since 1959.

This year, fifteen young women including myself signed up for the New York Rose selection which was held on April 22nd at Empire City Casino in Yonkers, New York.

Bright and early, several of us met at Empire City in Yonkers to begin our selection day. We were carted off along with some of our well-abled escorts down to Central Park for a quick horse and carriage ride and walk to Times Square to be used as a photo opportunity. Despite the looming ‘Irish weather’ of light rain and chilly air, we were full of laughter and welcomed the chance to get to know each other in this rather unique situation.

Back in Yonkers at Empire City, we got down to business. After a lunch where we further got to know each other, we were each interviewed one at a time by the four judges for the day. Serving on the panel were Ashling Colton, 2009 New York Rose who now works at 1010 Wins;
Patrick Tully, founder of Pat Tully Inc., board member of three not for profit foundations and volunteer for the American Ireland Fund; Joseph Tully, attorney at Alston & Bird; and Noreen Cullhane, 1970 New York Rose, Graduate of Harvard Business School and Former Executive Vice President of NYSE.

Though nerves were shaking prior to the interviews, we were all relieved to find out that once in with the judges, the ‘interview’ was more of a chat with a bit of banter where we contestants got to talk about ourselves, our accomplishments and our plans for the future and how they could be conducive to becoming the next New York Rose.

During the  interviews we were treated like stars, with our makeup and hair being done professionally for the evening’s events. We also got to chat with our master of ceremonies for the evening, Sean Ruane, a jolly man well familiar with the Irish American community in New York.

With down time between all of our interviews, we girls chatted and giggled together. Makeup and hair stylers were shared, compliments were flowing freely about how beautiful each other looked. Simply put, not a drop of cattiness was evident amongst the bunch of us, something that we all happily noted. Plans were already underway for ‘Rose Reunions’ in the future, prior to when the winner was named.

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