Dáithí’s in a sweat to be fit and festival-ready
Wearing a sauna suit during the sweltering summer helped Dáithí Ó Sé get in shape for the Rose of Tralee International Festival.
He returns for his ninth year at the helm of the show, a stone lighter after wearing the suit that he bought on the internet.
You need a lot of energy for the whole festival, but especially for the Monday and Tuesday nights,” he said after meeting the 57 hopeful Roses in Dublin yesterday.
“I am a great grazer so I had a stone to lose again.
“I got this thing called a sauna suit on Amazon
during the summer. It’s a wetsuit really. I was just googling and it came up.”
Dáithí started walking with the sauna suit under his clothes and found it helped him to quickly shed the pounds.
“Even if I walk a short distance, it will be soaking wet. I have to be careful and drink lots of water but it is brilliant.”
The co-presenter of RTÉ’s daytime television show has been out walking or jogging six miles a day for the last six weeks as well as watching what he was eating.
Now he feels fit enough for what is shaping up to be one of the most physically challenging sets of party pieces in Rose history.
I told all of the 57 Roses to try and knock me off my perch if you can because the audiences like a good ol’ laugh if the host takes a bit of a hit.
Dáithí also plans to continue hosting the show, now in its 59th year, for years to come. “It is a show that comes around once a year and it is a show that I really like presenting. But it is all about the Roses really.
“The minute I think I am the most important person in the room, I have lost it. A pat on the back is six inches up from a kick up the arse. If I remember those two things I will be all right.”
Arizona Rose, Kelsey Kelleher, 25, who won a redhead competition in Cork in 2014 for having the longest hair, once suffered from hair loss.
Her family originated from Cork; her ancestors went to America on famine ships. “For them, it was either go to America or die,” she said. “I am proud to be Irish-American: I am proud to represent all those who did not have an opportunity to stay in Ireland.”
Kelsey said she started unconsciously pulling out her hair when she was 11 years old. She was suffering from a body behaviour disorder called trichotillomania. While the condition can be stress-related, Kelsey said for her it was a genetic condition — her father also suffered from it.
It took Kelsey a year to tell her parents about her hair loss because she was so embarrassed about it. She wished she had told them sooner as they were hugely supportive. “I want to tell my story so I can be an inspiration to other people who suffer from the condition,” said Kelsey, who loves the arts and has performed on stage.
Texas Rose Kimberly Corser, 22, suffers from a condition called osteochondroma, a non-cancerous bone growth. Adults usually have 206 bones in their body but Kimberly has about 220.
I have had a couple removed to help me Irish dance,” said the economics student. “They would get caught on ligaments and I would have to physically pull them off,” she said.
The condition often occurs between the ages of 10 and 30 but Kimberly did not let it stop her from dancing. “I have been Irish dancing since I was seven years old. I have been over for the world championships a couple of times.”
Adrienne Hussy, the 2010 Texas Rose, who died suddenly in 2012 from a brain tumour, used to teach Kimberley Irish dancing: “I watched Adrienne go through the whole Rose thing. I was so enamoured with it all and she was such an amazing person.”
Cork Rose, Érinn O’Connell, 25, a nurse working in Cork University Hospital, said winning was not the “end game” for her — it was to make connections around the world.
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