KITSCH ’N’ SYNC

“Hi, my name is Tracie. I’m 5’ 7 in height. My hobbies are five card stud, oral sex and violently excessive drinking. My ambition is to jump the bones of every male model between here and the Ural mountains.”

Just once, wouldn’t you love to hear a beauty queen come out with something like that? In reality though, there is more likelihood of hearing a Eurovision Song Contest entrant admit that yes, they do have interests outside music – and that one of them is being a Eurovision Song Contest entrant.

On Monday August 15th (the feast of The Assumption of The Blessed Virgin Mary), we gathered in The Burlington Hotel to witness another kind of assumption but one that was no less blessed or virginal. The fact that the sceptre and crown were ultimately bestowed upon an Anna Maria (McCarthy, alias Miss Dublin) only added to the sense of mystical celebration. Ave Anna Maria!

This, we were told, was the 45th year of the Miss Ireland contest and the 15th year that the franchise has been held by the man who has become Mr. Miss Ireland, Krish Naidoo. A couple of hundred clots from the cream of Irish society paid £50 a head to eat prime roast rib of beef and to hold their own private flesh tribunal. However, as we were repeatedly reminded, it wasn’t all about glamour and glitz. This was a pageant with a theme, to wit “Beauty with a purpose.”

By which, of course, they mean that they do a lot for charitee. All proceeds from the sale of “souvenir brochures” and raffle tickets were to be devoted to The Cardiac Unit of Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. Big fucking deal! The punters at any one of the thirty tables probably spent more money on booze during the intermission than was raised by this extremely paltry gesture.

Our hosts for the evening were Michelle Rocca and Marty Whelan. With a little work, their scripted repartee could have been raised to the level of banal. As it was, it merely remained at deplorable throughout the entire evening. Seeing as Ms. Rocca was involved though, Marty Whelan brought an interesting new twist to the banter. It was the taking in vain of a hallowed name.

“Tonight, I’m your Van Morrison,” quipped Mr Daz-ling personality himself

“I didn’t hear you sing yet, Marty,” replied Michelle.

As well as the more obvious attributes, Michelle informed us, such as “good looks, fashion sense and an ability to give high standard interviews to the world’s press,” the eventual Miss Ireland “must also possess a degree of humanity.” Just a degree, mind. Fully-fledged humans need not apply.

As sponsorship has grabbed a tighter and tighter hold on the event, the titles have become increasingly absurd. One can really feel nothing but pity for the women who were forced to endure the pain of being known as Miss Tallaght Town Centre or Miss Irish Sun Newspaper or Miss Club 6W. Where will this stop? Will some young girl out there one day grow up to be Miss Massey’s Seeds, Fertilisers, Hardware And Fancy Goods?

The first glimpse we got of the finalists was when they were trotted out to march around the paddock, sorry, stage. As is always the case in such pageants, a couple of the contestants on display were, let’s say, bizarre enough to wrinkle clothes. However, compared to the gaggle of gargoyles which constituted the audience, even these plain Janes looked like Goddesses. Is there some dictum in the Miss World rulebook which dictates that where there is beauty, there must also be beasts?

When the lights went up in The Burlington, it was like something out of Return Of The Living Dead. I found myself surrounded by hundreds of grinning, red-faced zombies with double gins and chins, their jewels and jowls quivering against a backdrop of ridiculous frills and ruffles. And their female companions looked pretty silly as well.

The singing and dancing that was meant to keep us amused while the contestants changed costumes backstage was drab, predictable and cheap. Not so much light entertainment as entertainment lite. The inevitable Tony Kenny emerged rather incongruously at one point to croon the repellent ‘Music Of The Night’. This song is taken from The Phantom Of The Opera, essentially a story about the doomed love of a hideously deformed warbler for a beautiful young woman. Precisely what point are the organisers trying to make here? Should Tony request legal advice?

Later, Tony was joined onstage by David Parkes for the medley of leg-over classics (‘Lady In Red’, ‘Wonderful Tonight’, Just The Way You Are’, ‘Three Times A Lady’ etc. etc.) which formed the soundtrack for the evening wear segment. This is supposed to be the sophisticated portion of the proceedings. Yet, when you combined the leering tone of the music with the looks of barely concealed fear on the faces of the girls, it had all the class and elegance of a line-up in a cathouse.

Now that the contestants were out of their swimsuits and more modestly draped in cocktail dresses, it was time for us to hear them speak. According to the conventions governing the Miss Ireland pageant, women should be seen in bikinis and only heard when they aren’t showing at least a yard of leg.

Of course, the stated hobbies and ambitions of beauty queens are always a source of cheap chuckles and tonight was no exception. As usual, there was a large measure of overlap. Topping the chart of popular hobbies were aerobics, fashion, travel, drama and reading. Working out was also mentioned a lot but always by girls who seemed unaccountably coy about explaining exactly what it is they like to work out. Quadratic equations? Pieces of navel lint?

In a break with the trend, Miss Portmarnock admitted that she likes to kick up her heels by “looking after my diet and health,” and Miss Photogenic Meath & Louth announced that her idea of a good time is “speaking languages.” Don’t any of these people live near a decent nightclub?

In keeping with the ethos of her title, Miss Irish Sun Newspaper said that her ambition was “to own a sports car.” Miss Monaghan wanted “to be famous,” Miss Sligo hoped “to maintain a zest for life,” and Miss Glasnevin could think of no more wonderful goal than “to win Miss Ireland.” With a perfectly straight face, Miss Wicklow announced that her ambition was to “open an animal sanctuary.”

When discussing their dreams and passions, almost all of the women adopted the same disconcertingly chirpy but strangulated intonation. Maybe that’s how they think women with real poise and savoir faire would answer questions from someone like Marty Whelan about their hobbies and ambitions. The truth is, of course, that the sole reason for having real poise and savoir faire in the first place is so that you never have to answer questions from someone like Marty Whelan.

The panel of judges before whom these unfortunate women had to parade themselves for inspection consisted of Tony Ward, Frank McNamara, Teresa Lowe, Bibi Baskin, Martina Flynn (a Fair City star), Linda Martin and Don Nugent, director of sales with Clerys, the event’s chief sponsor. How many instances can you cite in which you would be happy to accept their majority verdict? Or, worse again, their unanimous verdict.

When the original twenty seven contestants were eventually whittled down to a final eight, they each had to pick an envelope from a top hat. Inside this envelope was the name of the judge who would ask them the all-important “personality test” question. Poor old Miss Tipperary drew the short straw and got Frank McNamara. “What was the most difficult moment in your life and how did you cope?,” enquired Frank in his best Oprah Winfrey voice. It transpired that the worst moment in Miss Tipperary’s life was when she was supposed to go for the Munster hockey trials but couldn’t because she caught the flu the day before.

Martina Flynn, the Fair City luminary, asked Miss Dublin an extraordinary question. “How,” she wondered, “would you tell a girl with low self-esteem to feel better about herself?” It was a little sad to hear an actress of La Flynn’s stature seek counselling in such a public manner. If she felt so humiliated by being here, then perhaps it would’ve been better if she’d taken the matter up with her agent at another time. Miss Dublin’s answer, however, rose heroically to the occasion.

“I would,” she replied, “tell her my own motto which is that every day is another day and that life is too short.” That gust you feel is the draught of a thousand heads being swiftly withdrawn from a thousand gas ovens.

For me, the highlight of the whole evening came when Teresa Lowe asked Miss Belfast if she could interview anybody in the whole world, who would she interview and what would she ask them? With barely a nanosecond’s deliberation, Miss Belfast responded clearly and without equivocation.

“Gordon Wilson,” she declared. “And I would ask him how he felt when his daughter was killed and how he’s coming along with his solution to the Northern Ireland problem.” If they hurry, then maybe it’s not too late to organise a seat at the talks table for this woman.

By now, I was getting really excited. It was nearly time to go home. While waiting for the winner’s name to be announced, I flicked through my own personal copy of the souvenir brochure and was interested to find that the gallery of Former Miss Irelands therein is not so much a Who’s Who of Irish celebrity as a Who’s That.

Olivia Tracey (1984) and Michelle Rocca (1980) are the exceptions that prove the rule but the vast majority of these girls seem to have faded into oblivion the moment the traditional tears of victory dried on their faces. It’s little wonder that in journalistic circles the term ‘Former Miss Ireland’ has become a euphemism for those C-division members of the glitteratti who occasionally make it into the footnotes of the social columns but whose names are never printed in bold type. The forgotten but not gone.

However, the brochure revealed another shock and one that has kept me awake nights ever since. Page 42 was completely blank except for a single-word headline which was meant to explain its purpose. That word was AUTOGRAPHS.