Mary from Dungloe: Poses, party pieces and Prosecco at Donegal’s original ‘lovely girls’ competition

My phone rings from an unknown number as I’m driving to Dungloe, where the 56th Mary from Dungloe Festival is taking place all week.

“This is Daniel,” says the caller in a Donegal accent. As it happens, I am due to meet Daniel O’Donnell – known as “Mr Festival” due to his long association with said festival – that evening, but no time has yet been arranged. Is he actually calling me himself?

“Hello!” I squawk.

“This is Daniel calling from the hotel. Would you like to book dinner with us this evening?”

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I meet Mr Festival himself a few hours later, in the Bridge Bar on Dungloe’s Main Street. The rain is pouring outside. It’s pouring over punters and the street vendors and the marquees and the open-air stage and the funfair; an astonishing 100-plus events are happening across the week, many of them free.

Daniel O’Donnell is dapper in a three-piece suit. “Like any county town, Dungloe needed something,” he says, explaining the origins of the festival. “It’s survived this long, and it’s still relevant today, because we still have a close-knit community. Some of the events are very small, but that means there is something for everyone.”

Later that evening, O’Donnell does an ad hoc, unscheduled session at the Bridge Bar, which I hear belting out while walking back to my hotel in the rain.

There are 14 Marys this year, none of them actually called Mary, and 11-year-old Lena O’Donnell (no relation to Mr Festival, as far as I know) who is Little Miss Mary. The prize for the winning person will consist of: a cheque for €1,000; €3,000 towards travel over the coming year to promote the festival; a hamper from the Gray Room boutique in Letterkenny; and a €500 clothes voucher. Also, you get your name engraved on the huge, striking silver necklace that was designed by musician Dónal Lunny back in the day, 56 years ago, when he was initially working as a silversmith.

“I’m Mary of all the Marys,” Mary Ward tells me the next morning, when I board the bus that is chauffeuring the 14 Marys, Little Miss Mary and various Mary minders and fixers around the county for their day’s events.

We couldn’t compare ourselves with the Rose of Tralee. Not that we don’t aspire to

“I’m Mary Godmother,” says Paula Greene, which is echoed by Alannagh McGlynn, the 2021 winning Mary. The highly efficient Greene and McGlynn, all clipboards and intense phone calls during the day I spend with them, are helping Ward out, whose 31st festival it is. “I’m not able for as many late nights now,” Ward says. The biggest challenge, she says, is getting the Marys to stick to the schedule.

I am finding it difficult to concentrate on what Ward is saying, because the rural route we are taking to Letterkenny is so ridiculously beautiful. Miles of blanket bog, and glittering lakes of all sizes, and mountains, interspersed with a scattering of isolated houses that look like film sets.

“We couldn’t compare ourselves with the Rose of Tralee,” she is saying. “Not that we don’t aspire to. But they are like a company. People get paid. We are voluntary.” Unlike the Rose of Tralee, Mary from Dungloe has never been televised by RTÉ, although TG4 live-streams the final on its website.

Ward tells me that during the previous day’s schedule, the Marys met a dog with three legs in the Rusty Mackerel pub in Teelin. “His name was Bono, and he had a sash on him that said, ‘The Donegal Nose of Tralee’.”

The Marys themselves are spread out through the bus, all of them wearing their white sashes which namecheck their various sponsors – not Tralee or noses. They’re dressed in an array of bright summer frocks and slacks, apart from Little Miss Mary who is rocking a black top, black trousers and big black platform shoes. Throughout the day, McGlynn does a brisk roll call each time they come back on to the bus.

“Bayonne. Belfast. Birmingham. Cavan. Dubai. Dublin. Dungloe. Gaeltacht. Glasgow. London. New York. Philadelphia. Wild Atlantic Way. Little Miss Mary,” she says.

There is no call for the Donegal Mary, Christina Gallagher, because she is not travelling on the bus today. At our first stop, which is at Highland Radio in Letterkenny, Gallagher is waiting for the other Marys. They all run over, and take turns hugging her tightly. Gallagher’s uncle John has just died; a bereavement that was preceded by her father Patrick just a few weeks before. She has not been participating in all the events, but decided not to withdraw entirely. “My uncle would have wanted me to do it, and it’s something for my family to look forward to,” she tells me later, with admirable composure.

Greg Hughes is the host of the station’s flagship Nine ‘til Noon show and, over the next 30 minutes or so, delivers a masterclass in interviewing. All 14 of the Marys, plus Mary of the Marys, and Little Miss Mary, come into the studio in threes and fours. He manages to find something fresh and different to say to each person (each gets equal airtime), is consistently engaging, effortlessly gets in a few festival event plugs, and takes the time beforehand to check the unusual pronunciation of a familiar name. The New York Mary is Kiera O’Connor. “Key-ah-ra,” she says while they are on an ad break. Hughes’s pronunciation is faultless when the time comes to introduce her.

He also namechecks the full name of the festival, which I confess had passed me by – I had assumed it was simply Mary from Dungloe. It’s not. It’s the mouthful Mary from Dungloe International Arts Festival.

Next stop is to the sponsor, the Gray Room. During the week, the Marys drop in on a number of sponsors, who collectively assist with flights, accommodation and associated festival costs, such as marquee and stage hire. Ward tells me there is a roughly €200,000 spend for the festival, which seems modest given the number of events they run.

At the Gray Room, Mary Rogers, the festival’s volunteer photographer, takes about 10,000 pictures, and boomerang videos. These are all forwarded to the social media person back at base, who is posting to Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (but not Twitter). Rogers was up until midnight the previous day downloading and forwarding images. She instructs the Marys to hold up the bags, fascinators and costume jewellery the shop is known for.

It’s the Gay Byrne perpetual crown. The Byrne family donated it last year. Obviously, it’s not diamonds

The Dungloe Mary, Caitlin McCahill is wearing a magnificent tiara. “It’s the same one as Meghan Markle wore for her wedding,” she tells me, and takes out her phone to google the Garrard-designed diamond tiara the Duchess of Sussex wore for her 2018 wedding.

“It’s the Gay Byrne perpetual crown,” Mary Ward says. “The Byrne family donated it last year. Obviously, it’s not diamonds.” (Later, I look at Google. Etsy sells a number of copies of the tiara.)

There are two more sponsors to visit before lunch: Hyundai and Pure Boutique. They have organised bottles of Prosecco, and there is an enthusiastic uptake when the glasses are handed around.

“God, they’re going to be drunk,” one of the Mary Godmothers mutters to nobody in particular.

Everywhere the Marys go, the car horns beep. When we cross the road to get back to the bus, the Letterkenny traffic honks and hoots. The Dubai Mary, Adele Morgan, holds up her sunglasses. They look a bit wonky. “I sat on them somewhere,” she says mournfully.

Lunch is at the Station House Hotel. Large plates of chicken goujons, coleslaw, salad, chips and mashed potatoes are served up. I’m sitting at a table with Shaun Timony, our driver. He works as a mackerel fisherman from January until the end of May, and then as a driver for the summer months. Driving the Marys around seems exotic enough until he tells me he did a job early this summer that involved driving 50 Czech wizards, Druids and witches around Ireland’s sacred and Neolithic sites. “It was awful hot weather, so I stopped at Bundoran beach so they could swim, and the next thing they’re all running naked into the sea,” he says laughing and shaking his head.

After lunch, there’s a quick stop at the Letterkenny Shopping Centre for yet more photos with the endlessly patient Marys. “I heard you on Highland Radio,” one punter says, in passing.

Dancing or singing. But no poetry. Generally people find it boring. There were about seven poems last year; they wrote them themselves. There’s no poetry this year

More car horns sound on exiting the centre. A large group of Gaeltacht students, many of them carrying Penneys bags, stop and gawk at the Marys. Back on the bus, the radio is turned up loud. It’s the afternoon show on Highland Radio, and there’s a shout-out for “the Marys who are on a bus on their way to Fanad Lighthouse”. The Marys shout out their approval, and then start singing The Hills of Donegal.

“Hey Barbie!” pipes up Little Miss Mary, apropos nothing, which starts off a chorus.

“Hey London!” (Erin Doohan)

“Hey Bayonne!” (Shannon Neary)

“Hey Birmingham!” (Katie Houston)

Astonishingly, the rain has stopped and the sun is out. The ocean in the distance is blue. It is freakishly perfect weather for a visit to Fanad Lighthouse, which was automated in 1983. There’s a palaver while exiting the bus, because TG4 is there, filming the Marys as they get off. More pictures follow, and more filming. On the helipad, in front of the lighthouse, with staff and without staff, with Marys jumping, and Marys looking at the surreally photogenic ocean. I look at my watch and estimate that roughly one-third of all their time today was spent posing for pictures and videos. Those sponsors are definitely getting their money’s worth.

During the photo session, I talk to Mary of all the Marys about party pieces. When the public interviews take place later in the week, they are all expected do some kind of performance. “Dancing or singing,” Ward says. “But no poetry. Generally people find it boring. There were about seven poems last year; they wrote them themselves. There’s no poetry this year.”

She tells me that Wild Atlantic Way (Aoibhinn O’Dea) – all the Marys are referred to by the places they represent, rather than their own names – plays the fiddle, so she’ll be doing that. “We had a chef Mary last year, who did an egg-breaking competition with Daniel. This year, New York plays football, so she’s going to challenge Daniel to a penalty shoot-out.”

At the lighthouse, which has some fascinating historic artefacts and displays, the Marys wait their turn to go up the spiral stone stairs to the top, which can only accommodate eight at a time. Philadelphia Mary (Anne Marie McCafferty) is wearing a little gold crucifix around her neck, which I ask about. “My faith is very important to me,” she says. She and other Marys talk about the relevance of the festival in 2023. The consensus is that the core meaning is located in “the spirit of Dungloe and its community. Community is what keeps it going.”

Back on the bus, Mary Godmother McGlynn gives a pep talk. The Marys need to rehearse a song. Or rather, not a song, but a hymn written by Dana Rosemary Scallon in 1980 called Lady of Knock. The Marys will be attending 11am Mass at St Crona’s Catholic Church on Sunday, and they will be singing as honoured members of the congregation. The Marys set to, and sing Lady Of Knock a few times on the way back to Dungloe. McGlynn plays The Bells of the Angelus on her phone as a possible alternative, but it’s voted down in favour of Dana’s hymn.

Back in Dungloe at 7.30pm, the Marys head for a Chinese meal before two or three more evening events, but I’m done for the day. They continue their tour of Donegal, and events in and around Dungloe for the rest of the week, until the main event. On Sunday evening, the Crowning Cabaret will take place in the Rosses Community School sports hall, compered by Mr Festival, Daniel O’Donnell.

They are all lovely Marys. May the best Mary win.