Galway Rose aims to bloom in Tralee

Date Published: 11-Apr-2012

It’s been eight years since Galway was represented at the Rose of Tralee event but the county has high hopes that Anna de Paor will be going to Tralee this August.

Anna, from Oughterard, was selected at the Carlton Shearwater Hotel in Ballinasloe on Saturday night and though she still has to go through a regional selection in Portlaoise in June, there’s a positive buzz around that she will beat competition from neighbouring counties.

Anna, who was born to Irish parents in Australia 27 years ago, has always dreamed of taking part in the Rose of Tralee competition having been reared on VHS recordings of the annual event sent through the post by her grandmother.

“Sure it’s every little girl’s dream to be a Rose and I’m thrilled that I am now the Galway Rose though obviously, I would hope to go further. They were a great bunch of girls that I got to know over the past few weeks and it’s true what they say, there is a lovely atmosphere about the Rose contest.

“I have enjoyed taking part so far,” she says as she greets a few friends who have come into her workplace, Born, to congratulate her.

She works as a Department Manager for Born Clothing in Galway City’s Newtownsmyth branch and loves interacting with customers but she does hold a BA in English and History from the University of Limerick and an MA in International Human Rights Law from NUIG.

She was only eleven when her parents, Louis and Shirley, returned home to Ireland with their five children. Anna is the eldest of five and is a redhead just like her parents and siblings.

Anna has been involved in volunteering work, including fundraising for Special Olympics Ireland, helping in an after school programme for Traveller children and Trocaire.

She loves travelling and taught English in Spain for six months and spent another six months in Poland, where she struggled to learn Polish but failed, she says. Anna is a fluent Irish speaker – her father is a Irish language poet and academic.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.