"Will Leahy I bet you wish you could clone yourself," said Brenda Donohue on The Ray D'Arcy Show and you couldn't blame him. As a Treaty man whose blood runs green, the 45 year wait for the Liam MacCarthy Cup was worth it when Limerick clinched victory after a powerful Galway comeback late in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling final. "I got offered the gig of a lifetime to DJ at the homecoming tonight in the Gaelic grounds but because of Rose of Tralee duties, I'm here, just beside The Dome looking at a slightly dull overcast Tralee but we've a great show lined up," he explained. You can't have it every which way! Will of course is the voice of the Rose of Tralee and you'll see him on your screens, reading out the best of your offerings on social medial.
The Rose of Tralee is a punctuation point denoting the wind down of the Irish summer but Brenda pointed out that a recent survey showed 47% of Irish people don't like the festival. "53% do, that's enough!" said Will. Elections have been won on a significantly slimmer margin.
"The Rose of Tralee is like most things that are popular – it's not for everyone but the people who love it, love it and an awful lot of work goes into the Rose of Tralee. I often say to become Taoiseach, you don't even have to do a job interview but to become the Rose of Tralee, I think you have to be interviewed 13 times."
Between local heats and television interviews, 13 rounds is a lot by any standards, but even those who don't make the the live television final over the two nights get to head to Tralee to enjoy the festivities. 57 roses in all descend upon the town to enjoy what many describe as the week of a lifetime and it's not just important for the roses themselves.
"Families that have emigrated whose daughter is coming back to be part of the Rose of Tralee, you cannot imagine how important it is to them and how emotional it is for them… You could have 30 people travelling from Florida."
"It's very hard to explain," said Will, speaking of the appeal of the Rose of Tralee, but it's a uniquely Irish and completely original event and earns some of the best TV ratings of the year.
"When you see the viewing figures when they come in you'll realise people love to slag it off but they love to watch it as well and one other thing that's really come up in the last number of years is the social media. People sit and watch it and watch to slag it off on Twitter at the same time."
Lest anyone slags it off too much, it's important to remember what the title entails. "Unless you're going to be able to stand up in front of the pope and represent Ireland, that's really what's expected of the Rose," Will explained. "They're a representative of the festival, they're a representative of Ireland for the 12 months."
That said, there's still a strong element of craic and always the element of surprise, and the party pieces never fail to disappoint.
"Dáithí gets tied up in a jacket, he gets power benched, he's lifted off the stage… There's going to be a cow milked on stage at some point."
Click here to listen to The Ray D'Arcy Show.