Races bomb hoax fails to wilt Rose success
But the last day of the event was marred when seven Roses had to be turned away from Tralee Racecourse following a hoax bomb alert yesterday afternoon.
A phone call was received by an official just as the Roses arrived to greet punters and as the first race was about to start.
“The Roses were running 10 minutes late and they had just got here when we had to turn them away,” said race event spokeswoman Orla Diffily.
“We were disappointed for the race-goers as the Roses would have been signing autographs and meeting them.”
The jockeys and horses were on the track for the 2.45pm race when the hoax call came in. Gardaí told about 3,000 punters to leave.
The crowd was let back in 40 minutes later and racing recommenced at 3.30pm. No one was hurt.
Organisers decided to run a full race programme despite the interruption at the start of the prestigious five-day racing meet.
Yesterday’s start of the racing coincided with the last day of the Rose of Tralee as part of a move to get more people into the town.
Following financial troubles a number of years ago, festival managing director Anthony O’Gara said it was becoming stronger.
“We are seeing a renaissance,” he said. “It’s a slow process like turning a ship around but it’s going to get stronger.
“Our new venue this year at the Fels Point Hotel means we had 900 people instead of 600 at the Rose Ball, the festival’s premier social event.”
For years the festival was at the town centre Brandon Hotel but this year organisers moved to the new Fels Point on the outskirts.
Traders and publicans in Tralee raised €80,000 to pay for street entertainers, while renewed worldwide interest has helped.
The festival has also seen a growth in new “centres” – the grassroots organisations that put forward candidates from Irish communities worldwide.
“The interest from abroad is extraordinary and these new centres have added sparkle this year,” said Mr O’Gara.
“People have taken the trouble to come from centres in the USA, Australia and Britain and they’ve come a long way.”
The Rose of Tralee is pulling in more television viewers across Ireland.
Viewing figures for the first half of Monday’s show reveal that 483,000 viewers tuned in, compared with 300,000 the year before, a rise of 183,000 or 61%.
The audience for the second half reached 724,000, up 151,000, or 25%, on last year’s figure of 573,000.
The RTÉ coverage — hosted by Today FM DJ Ray D’Arcy — was also broadcast online, with 5,117 computer users worldwide viewing proceedings.
The most online viewers were in the US and Britain but it was also watched in Italy, Spain and Germany — despite these countries having no Roses.
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