When Clodagh Cassin initially considered throwing her hat in the ring for the Kilkenny Rose, she was apprehensive that she wouldn’t fit “regular Rose material”. After some enquiries, the selection coordinator from her home county rang to detail what the process entails.
“I was like, ‘God, if I told you where I was sitting at the moment in the middle of this phone call you wouldn’t think I’d be Rose material’,” recalls Clodagh. “I was sitting out on an upside-down trough feeding calves because mum and dad had gone away. She was like, ‘No, no, no, we love that, it’s very different’. So I went for it and here I am, ready for Tralee.”
Growing up on the farm as the middle child with an older brother and younger sister, Clodagh was always the one outside helping her father, Liam. This ultimately culminated in her decision to do a degree in agricultural science at UCD, which the 22-year-old has just finished. In September she will start a master’s in education with a view to becoming an ag science and biology teacher, a career she hopes will work well alongside farming in the future.
Over the years the family’s farm enterprise has undergone some change. Originally they were in sucklers and sheep.
In 2000 their flock contracted scrapie; this unfortunately put paid to their days in sheep. A couple of years ago, Liam moved away from sucklers into contract rearing.
This suits him well, as he is the only one in the family able to devote any significant time to the farm at present.
I’ve been milking cows here for the whole summer. I kind of felt it would fit in better than if I went and got a full-time job from Monday to Friday
As to whether or not Clodagh will speak about farming on stage in Tralee, well it’s bound to come up, she deduces, seeing as she has been milking all summer.
“I’ve been milking cows here for the whole summer. I kind of felt it would fit in better than if I went and got a full-time job from Monday to Friday,” explains Clodagh.
“I milk for a guy 10 minutes up the road, I do every evening for him.
“If he’s going away or anything I will obviously be doing morning and evening, shoving in grass and things like that.
"I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been really nice. It’s peaceful for the two and a half hours I’m with the cows.”
The hockey bug
In the kitchen of Clodagh’s family home, which is just 10 minutes outside Kilkenny city on the banks of the River Nore, a book called The First Rose of Tralee lies on the window sill. Our teacups sit on two coasters. One says, “I’m a keeper”. the other, “Goalkeepers are amazing”, gifted to Clodagh because of her prowess as a hockey goalie.
Speaking with Clodagh, it’s evident that hockey is the topic she likes to discuss most. She is animated and excited when detailing her favourite sport. Indeed, her whole family has a keen interest in all sports. When Irish Country Living arrives, they are watching a ladies’ Gaelic football match and Liam plans later to listen to the rugby commentary on the radio.
It was from Clodagh’s mother, Alison Woodroofe, a teacher, that the Kilkenny Rose’s interest in hockey first came. But, it was the secondary school she attended, Kilkenny College, where the hockey bug really took hold.
Last year, Clodagh was dropped from the Irish panel during the final cut before the Women’s Hockey World Cup – Ireland reaching the final here needs no introduction as the catalyst for thrusting Irish women’s hockey into the limelight. She is pragmatic about this; only so many goalkeepers can go, and upon seeing the team’s success, she was straight to London to cheer on the ladies.
“Me and one of my friends booked a flight out the Saturday morning for the semi-final coming back that night after it.
Hockey was never really spoken about before and we have never done so well. People who were never interested in the sport were so moved by the thing
"Then they won and Dad rang me, he was like, ‘You can’t come home, there’s no way you can come home’.
“So we were trying to get flights and we didn’t end up flying back until the Monday morning.
"Hockey was never really spoken about before and we have never done so well. People who were never interested in the sport were so moved by the thing.”
Success like this, Clodagh feels, makes playing sport more achievable and accessible to younger girls. They will see, she hopes, that you don’t need an elite background to play elite sport.
Not a pageant 
At present Clodagh is in Tralee, getting ready for the Rose of Tralee festivities to kick off and for her television interview early next week. Between farming, hockey and everything else, there’s no doubt she will have plenty to talk about with Dáithí Ó Sé.
But (back to the kitchen for a second) Irish Country Living wants to know her thoughts on the Rose of Tralee as a concept. What would the Kilkenny Rose say to those who think it’s outdated?
“I don’t think it is, because it’s not a pageant. A pageant is what you see in American movies. The Rose of Tralee isn’t like that. It’s all about what you’re like as a person. How you talk to and relate to a three-year-old child and then turn around and speak with someone in their 80s or 90s.
“It’s that you’re able to form an opinion on stuff, you’re educated in things that are going on in Ireland and around the world today.
“It’s not done on looks, it’s not done on anything like that. I feel like you don’t do the Rose of Tralee to go and win the Rose of Tralee. You do it for the whole experience and if you win it at the end it’s just a bonus,” she adds.
“I was saying to Mum before the Kilkenny selection night, in sport we watch video clips on the team we’re going to play, you’re doing research. When you’re in college and the whole way up through school, you study for your exams.
“Then this came along and I was like, ‘I can’t do anything for this, I can’t prepare’. You don’t know what the judges are going to ask you, so all you can do is go and be yourself.”
Did you know…?
This year, the organisers have cut down the number of Roses. There are only 32, so every Rose will now have a television interview. Rose selection areas will rotate every second year.