Daithi O’Se has admitted the cancellation of this year’s Rose Of Tralee has been “devastating” for the locals.
Back in April, organisers decided to cancel this year’s festival for the first time in 61 years – due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Speaking to the Irish Mirror, Daithi said he’s going to miss the buzz of hosting the show in the Festival Dome.
“Coming into August now and you would usually be really looking forward to it and meeting all the Roses in some capacity and looking forward to that and getting stuck in I suppose,” he said.
“So I really miss that and the Monday and the Tuesday of the shows, that’s the best part for me so I’m going to really miss it.”
“But we are all in the same boat so we just need to pull through it and hopefully next year we will be back bigger and better.”
The RTÉ star, who is currently based in Galway, continued: “It’s crazy but the likes of Galway.. it’s busy all year around, if you talk about Tralee, the Rose of Tralee is the backbone of Tralee for the whole year and the surrounding areas as well.”
“So we were upset that there was no Rose of Tralee this year from a TV point of view but you have to look at the bigger picture and the people of Tralee, everyone involved, livelihoods and everything so that’s the bigger picture.
“It’s devastating for them, we just have to hope everything will be spot on and we can come back bigger and better next year,” he added.
The Rose of Tralee is scheduled to return in August 2021.
