This year's Tipperary Rose is busy, passionate and full of talent

It was announced earlier this year that Ballina’s Tara Brady was set to be Tipperary’s representative in this year’s Rose of Tralee contest.

Tara is the daughter of Enda and Anne Brady. Her father Enda originally hails from Drumcondra in Dublin whereas her mother Anne is from just across the river in Killaloe. Rest assured that despite her mother’s family being from the Clare side of the River Shannon, Tara is a “proud Tipp woman”. Tara has one brother Jack who is a teacher in Terenure College and a talented goalkeeper, he played for Tipperary’s Minor Gaelic Football team and was a stalwart of Ballina’s team for a number of years. He is now putting these talents to use as goalkeeper for Longford Town soccer team.

Tara has had a busy start to the year so far with her nomination as Tipperary Rose just one of her many achievements ticked off in the first half of 2024. Taking up a large part of her time right now is the final stages of her Master’s Degree in Public History and Cultural Heritage from the University of Limerick.

Speaking about the experience of undergoing a Master’s Degree, Tara said: “The year flew. Twelve months is a short time to get through a whole Master’s degree but I really have enjoyed it so much.”
“History has always been my interest but my particular interest would be the revolutionary period 1916 to 1923 and that’s what I hope to specialise in when I finish my degree.
“I’m currently working on my dissertation which is about rebel songs and the recent conversations and controversies surrounding the resurgence of the Wolfe Tones.”

When asked was she a part of the crowd at the infamous Wolfe Tones gig at Electric Picnic 2023, Tara said: “No, I actually wasn’t but coincidentally my band Cailíní Lua actually supported them just prior to that at their gig in the Limerick Gaelic grounds that August and that was a fantastic experience.”

One of her talents Tara hopes to show off at the Rose of Tralee is her affinity for Irish music, particularly in Irish dancing and playing the spoons and bodhrán. Tara has played with her band Cailíni Lua for a number of years now. It is an all girl trad band made up of Tara, Garraunboy sisters Katie and Laura Donohoe and Evan Gallagher from Mayo. All the girls sing in the band and play a variety of traditional instruments.

Speaking about her musical career, Tara said: “We’ve done a bit of travelling in recent years. We were in Florida in 2020 for the summer in an Irish pub called Raglan Road, which is actually in Disney Springs in Orlando."

“Then just last year we travelled to Doha, in Qatar. We were playing in another Irish bar there called The Shamrock.”

On the future of her career in music, she added: “To be totally honest, what we would all love to do is be professional musicians. We’re all doing it part-time at the moment because we’re at different stages of getting our degrees but once we have those in our back pockets we’d like to see where we can take the music.”

Tara’s love for Irish heritage and tradition was a big part of why she decided to take part in the Rose of Tralee competition.
“I love what it stands for, which is essentially giving Irish women a platform to discuss and highlight things that are important to them. It definitely ties into my interests in heritage and culture.”

“I don’t know if I can name many other countries that have festivals that specifically center around women."

“Ireland has a complicated history with women, mindset around women has only really started changing in recent decades with the laundries and that level of abuse of women having happened in living memory. So something like a festival that celebrates women is of course something I want to be a part of."

“It connects to the Irish diaspora all around the world so it’s literally a global celebration of Irish women, tradition and culture for a week in county Kerry.”

Tara recalled her introduction to the festival: “My first memory of the Rose of Tralee was back in 2008 when the Tipperary Rose at the time, Aoife Kelly who was from Portroe, actually won that year.

“She came to visit us in school, we were in second class and I can fully remember what she was wearing and what we were doing that day in school so I guess that must have sparked something in me that early on and it obviously resonated with me.
“Speaking of past winners, one of the things that’s been really lovely about this whole experience so far is getting to meet the other Roses and the past Tipperary Roses.
“It’s really nice to see that once it’s all over and done with the past Roses still come back year on year to support the new Roses.
“Aisling O’Donovan who was the Tipperary Rose back in 2022 has been such a great support to me over the past few weeks and months.”
“I haven’t actually met her in-person yet but we’re going for dinner soon and I’m really looking forward to meeting her.”
Tara was selected back in March as part of a selection process that saw 22 contestants head down to the Anner Hotel in Thurles. Galway Bay FM’s Ollie Turner was on hosting duties for the night where the 22 women participated in a number of rounds of interviews and demonstrations before Tara was finally selected to represent the county.

Speaking about the selection process, Tara said: “So it’s basically a full day, you go there in the morning and you have individual interviews with three judges and then after that you have a group interview. Then you have the stage element.”
“The MC for us on the day was Ollie Turner and oh my gosh I was so grateful for him because he just took the pressure right off. For anyone that might have been a little nervous or apprehensive, he just made the whole thing a lot easier and that’s what you really need because it’s such an unusual experience.”

“For my talent, I actually played the spoons and I did some Irish dancing. It was great because I got the girls in my band to record a piece for me that I could structure my routine around in terms of timings and speed.”

Tara spoke about what inspired her to take on the Rose of Tralee and mentioned her parents and brother as her primary inspirations. She said: “It’s a bit cliché but honestly my biggest inspirations are my father and mother.

“My parents have worked so hard, taking on additional jobs, driving my brother and I all around the country to follow our passions. It’s only now that I’m getting older and I’m thinking about my career and my future that I have really just started to appreciate just how hard they’ve worked and I don't know how they did it.

“I need them to write the guidebook for me on parenting because they have just been so supportive and encouraging and I just couldn’t ask for better.
“Then of course there’s my brother who I know is not just an inspiration for me but for a lot of younger sports people at home.”
“He always makes time for sports and his coaching outside of his full time job and if there’s a way he can make a positive contribution to something he always does his best to get it done.”

Finally, Tara spoke about her plans for the future outside of the Rose of Tralee.“All going well, I’ll be graduating in January as a qualified historian. I’ve been working with East Clare Heritage in Tuamgraney and I’m hoping to be able to continue working with them when I finish my degree which would be fantastic.”
“We’re also hoping to see what we can do with our music for a year or two after university so I’m looking forward to seeing where that goes. We actually have a few gigs coming up in the Summer. We’ll be travelling to Norway in July so that’s really exciting and knocks another place off the bucket list.
“I’m keeping very busy but I love it and I’m really enjoying every experience I’m getting to have. I feel very lucky.”
“I’ll be bringing a huge group of people with me to the competition in August and I’m just so grateful to have such huge support from my family, friends and my community.”