Charmaine is  the Golden Jubilee Rose of Tralee

The London Rose Charmaine Kenny, a twenty-six-year-old economics scholar at Trinity College Dublin and budding entrepreneur, who is originally from Athy, Co Kildare, has won the 50th International Rose of Tralee Competition. Charmaine was selected from amongst 32 Roses who had reached the final stages of the competition. The announcement was made by RTE presenter Ray D'Arcy at the packed Topaz festival dome in Tralee on Wednesday night (Aug 26).  This year's festival attracted the highest TV viewing figures of recent years.

Charmaine has recently finished working as a management consultant. She now hopes to fulfil her ambition of becoming an entrepreneur and plans to explore various business ideas in the coming months. The 26-year old has a degree in Management Science & Information System Studies and a masters in Economics, both from Trinity College, Dublin, where she is also an elected Scholar at TCD. She enjoys the outdoors and scaled Mount Kilimanjaro last year. She is an avid runner and has completed the Connemara Marathon and is now training for the Great Gorilla Run in London (dressed as a gorilla). She is involved with Irish charity Suas and has spent time volunteering in Calcutta and Delhi. Her other passion is travelling, and one of her favourite trips was three months in Japan working as a weather presenter.   She can now indulge her favourite passion as she will spend the next 12 months travelling the world representing Tralee and  Ireland.

Charmaine is the second London Rose to hold the coveted crown which was won by Maureen Shannon in 1975 and the first from an UK Centre since Kirsty Flynn in 1993.   42 of the 50 Roses of Tralee, including the 1959 Rose Alice O'Sullivan from Dublin, were present in the dome to see the new Rose being crowned. 

Pics courtesy of Eamonn Keogh, MacMonagle Photography, Killarney