Saturday with Carl Mullan: The Rose of Tralee celebrates of both Irish women and Tralee

Carl Mullan returns as master of ceremonies for the beloved national event

Carl Mullan returns as Rose of Tralee Master of Ceremonies.

06.30

Before kids, I would have had a nice 9am or 10am start but now it’s more like a 6.30am start. By 7am, we are definitely up and going and getting breakfast for everyone. The kids do Water Babies every Saturday morning, so it’s usually a mad rush to get everyone fed, changed, and out the door before swimming. They’re five, three, and one-and-a-half and at that stage where they’re best mates and also sworn enemies, so Saturday mornings can be absolutely mad but, because they love swimming, they’ll usually cooperate.

08.30

They’ll have their swimming lessons and then we’ll usually hang around and chat to people while they play with their pals.

10.00

We might go to get a drive-through coffee and babychinos for the kids as a treat and go for a drive, so everyone has a bit of downtime. There’s a place called Fools and Horses Coffee that we like and also Goats Gruff Coffee. We might go to visit the kids’ grandparents — we are lucky that our families live close by.

We might swing back for our dog Angie and head to Phoenix Park, aka The Reindeer Park. We are blessed with Angie — she is a labrador and our first child. She couldn’t be better with the kids. If they’re sick, she won’t leave their side and we even think that she was able to tell when my wife was pregnant before we did. She became very clingy and has repeated the same pattern with each of the pregnancies.

13.00

The two younger children will go for a two-hour nap and we’ll get some jobs done or sit out the back with Davy while he plays. Invariably, I will start a project and then realise I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’m a huge F1 fan, so I’ll catch up with some of that.

15.00

We might go to visit our parents if we haven’t in the morning, we might visit a friend’s house, or we might get the kids on their bikes and head to a local playground. In the winter, they love to get into their rain suits and to splash about in puddles.

17.30

Sometimes on a Saturday, we will get the kids involved in making homemade pizzas or something like that for dinner. We might feed the kids first and then eat ourselves later. Some of our close friends that live close by don’t have kids so they will visit us because we can’t go out. The kids will be delighted to see them and then we’ll get to hang out later in the evening.

18.30

The kids will have a small treat, get their pyjamas on, and will head up to bed by around 7pm or 7.30pm. We’ll have a few stories, sing a few songs, and they’ll usually be asleep by 8pm.

20.00

We’ll hang out with our friends — chatting all night, maybe planning a weekend away, or sitting around watching a series together. I don’t miss going out now that I have kids — I love sitting at home chatting to my mates.

I’d love to say that I always go to bed early, there is the odd night when we stay up late, but I genuinely think it’s worth it.

It’s very easy to think you have to surrender to parenthood and to think that your entire social life and all the craic has to die once you become a parent but it’s important as parents to give yourself that time with your friends. We might go a few weeks where we haven’t seen our mates that much and we’ll miss them. As a couple, I think it’s important to remind yourselves that you had a relationship before kids.

Having children of my own has also changed my own relationship with my parents — I now realise that they had a life before they had me.

Now that the kids are at an age that they can be minded, we’ve had a couple of nights out over the summer. It’s important to refill your cup.

This weekend I’m busy prepping for the Rose of Tralee and I am looking forward to returning to Tralee. You look at the Rose of Tralee on telly and you think it’s just a TV event and then you arrive in Tralee and realise that it involves the whole town and that there is an incredible buzz about it.

It feels like it’s a celebration of the women taking part but also of the town of Tralee itself. There are always people who want to chat, who are there to support the Roses, and you meet such brilliant characters. I love chatting to people and finding out fun little nuggets for the live event.

• Now in its 66th year, the Rose of Tralee airs on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player on Monday, August 17, and Tuesday, August 18, from 8pm. Carl Mullan returns as master of ceremonies for the event, which sees Dáithí Ó Sé and Kathryn Thomas interviewing the final 32 Roses live from Tralee, guaranteeing plenty of craic, excitement, and memorable moments. rte.ie