BACK IN 1980, Jeanie McCarthy represented Peterborough in the Rose of Tralee.
At the time, McCarthy was accompanied to the event by her father. Unfortunately, he forgot to load film in his camera meaning that there are very few photos from the event. (Ah, the days before iPhones.)
36 years on, McCarthy’s son Blayne has reached out to Reddit Ireland in an effort to find footage of the 1980 Rose of Tralee so that his 90-year-old grandmother can see her daughter on stage for the first time.
In his post, Blayne noted that his mother reached out to RTÉ over the years, but to little avail.
My mother contacted RTÉ and the BBC years ago and they said that in “those days” tapes were recorded over.
So now he’s hoping that someone out there has tapes from the event.
If anyone out there has some old VHS (or Betamax?) tapes, I would be very happy to find a digital version or to make a donation toward the digitization of the old video.
We’re in Ontario, Canada so tracking down physical copies ourselves in Ireland isn’t really possible. My grandmother is 90 this year, and my mother’s birthday is coming up as well. I’d love if the Irish of Reddit could help bring some sunshine of a very happy memory to my mother Jeanie McCarthy by tracking this down somehow.
DailyEdge.ie reached out to the Rose of Tralee festival to ascertain whether or not they have footage from the event and they told us that all queries must go to RTÉ Archive. We have since contacted RTÉ Archive for comment.
In the meantime, it might be time to have a root through your attics for old dusty VHS tapes.
