Caroline Callaghan, Murrin Fanad who was selected as the Dubai Rose of Tralee on Frday night. She is pictured in the Jumeirah Creekside Hotel in Dubai with her boyfriend, Barry McGettigan and his dad, Eugene.
A Fanad teacher has been selected to represent Dubai in the Rose of Tralee 2013.
Caroline Callaghan, who hails from Murrin in Fanad, has been teaching in Dubai for two years while back home in Donegal her parents, Henry, Kathleen and sister Sharon run the Callaghan Transport Company.
After reaching the final four, Caroline was crowned Dubai Rose at an event in the Jumeirah Creekside Hotel in Dubai on Friday night.
And the hotel was full of Donegal folks, some had travelled hundreds of miles to support Caroline. Among them was her neighbour and former Fanad band drummer Sean Hall who is teaching in Quatar.
Meanwhile as the judges in Dubai pondered on their decision, back in Fanad the local band where Caroline was a member and leader for eleven years were on tenterhooks at the Fanad Community Centre during their weekly rehearsals.
Caroline will now attend the regional final in the Portlaoise Heritage Hotel. Her family and friends are looking forward to seeing her when she travels to Ireland for the next stage of the competition on the June Bank Holiday weekend.
This is not the first time Dubai has been represented in the competition by a Donegal teacher. Grainne Boyle from Gartan was the Dubai Rose in 2011.
The Rose of Tralee International Festival is Ireland’s largest and longest running festival and is celebrating 54 years in 2013. The heart of the festival is the selection of the Rose of Tralee and there are seventy Rose Centres around the world. The Regional Festival is the event that has been established to get this number of Roses down to the 32 Roses that appear on the RTÉ television show in August.
“I am delighted to be representing Dubai In the next stage of the competition and am very excited about my trip to Portlaoise,’ Caroline said.