Sir, - The Rose of Tralee contest is a disgrace. The standard of the performances is (unwittingly) comical. The home-spun poetastery is putrid and the singing quease-making. The dire nature of the "turns" in this dignity-free zone is not even offset by a sense of sincerity for the whole show is a contrived, commercial yuk-fest.
Beauty contests are now generally accepted as crass and anachronistic. As a gormless relation of the primitive beauty contest, the Rose of Tralee is even more demeaning, for it mocks the contestants in more than one dimension, as well as undermining us all with its witless celebration of talentlessness.
As entertainment for the culturally illiterate, the inebriated and the simple, the Rose of Tralee has its place, but as a symptom of "Oirishness" it is an ailing, wailing runt and should be swiftly put to sleep. - Yours, etc., Paul M. Byrne,
Trafalgar Terrace, Monkstown, Co Dublin.