Of all the things you might expect a Rose of Tralee to get up to during her reign, forming a syndicate to buy a bull calf in a mart in Monaghan probably isn’t up there.

Then again, Elysha Brennan does have the A1 in ag science to back it up – though, for the time being, the calf is happily ensconced on the farm of former escort Fergal McNally, having been purchased at an auction in aid of the Chernobyl children’s charity.

“I think its middle name is going to be Rosie,” smiles the 23-year-old who is sporting a gash over her ankle after a local politician got a little bit too competitive playing football at a photocall the day before. (Who said being Rose of Tralee was all glamour?)

Still, she takes her war wound in her red stilettoed stride as she poses for the Irish Country Living shoot in Tralee. But while the ice-blonde beauty lights up the lens, she admits it has taken time to adjust to the attention that comes with the tiara that she inherited in August from Maria Walsh.

“It took a lot of getting used to walking into a room – and everyone is looking at you and everyone is forming an opinion,” she says, but references a quote that a friend shared with her.

“‘When a bird is on a branch, it’s not putting its faith in the branch; it’s putting its faith in its own wings.’

“So, you’re kind of trusting your own ability. You’re kind of thinking: ‘I can do this.’”

And if anyone knows about inner strength it’s Elysha, having been diagnosed with cancer at 19, just two weeks before her Leaving Cert.

“You know, when your hair is taken away from you, when your health is taken away from you, your independence, there’s so much taken away from you,” she reflects... before adding a major “but”.

“When you strip everything back that you thought made you, you really become yourself.”

So, who is Elysha Brennan?

The eldest of three children raised in Bettystown, Co Meath, she credits her parents, Donal and Christine, as major influences.

Having started out washing glasses behind a bar, her father worked his way up the hotel industry, but has been based in Dubai for the last three years after the recession hit the home trade.

Her mother, meanwhile, was raised on a dairy and sheep farm in Glenties, Co Donegal, but left at 18 to study nursing in London and worked in Saudi Arabia and Australia before returning as an A&E nurse to Beaumount Hospital.

Indeed, it was during her transition year placement at Beaumount that Elysha decided she wanted to study medicine, but having missed out on the points first time, returned to repeat her Leaving Cert with a “fire in her belly”.

“People think that to get into medicine you have to be a brain box. Nope. You have to be determined,” says Elysha, explaining that while she might have got the aforementioned A1 in honours ag science, she struggled for her C in ordinary level math.

“I definitely wouldn’t be someone that it comes to naturally. I really have to work hard. I probably have to work a lot harder than a lot of my colleagues in medicine,” she continues.

“But I don’t mind putting in the work. I think determination really gets you a lot of places in life and good things come to those who work hard. Good things come to those who never give up.”

Shortly before going back to school, however, Elysha’s hairdresser noticed she had a raised gland.

A physical exam and blood tests did not raise any concerns, but as the months passed, Elysha began to feel utterly drained, losing up to a stone in weight.

“But I just thought this is what it feels like when you’re working really hard for your exams,” she says.

A biopsy was scheduled, primarily for peace of mind. But on 23 May 2012 – exactly two weeks before English paper one – Elysha was diagnosed with Hodgkins’ lymphoma; yet still sat her Leaving Cert after being allowed to defer treatment until after the exams.

But how could she possibly focus on Shakespeare or Seamus Heaney with her own mortality hanging over her?

“It was complete and utter perspective,” she says, explaining that while everything in her personal world “was falling apart”, this was the one thing she felt she could determine.

“I said: ‘I’ve worked hard for these exams, this is in my control. It doesn’t matter what comes up in these papers. I know I’ve put in all the ground work. I’ve put every fibre of my being into studying for those exams, so I can control how I get on in these exams. It doesn’t matter what’s thrown at me, what can come up – I can work around it and I can get through it.’

Indeed, Elysha managed to get 575 points to study at the Royal College of Surgeons, but deferred her place for a year to undergo six months of chemotherapy and radiation.

While she came out the other side, however, she believes it’s important to be honest about the effect it had on her, not just physically but mentally, too.

“I think I really did get an insight into what it feels like to really struggle and to wake up in the morning and not know what’s ahead of you,” says Elysha, explaining that she found it particularly difficult watching her peers get on with their lives while she was stuck in limbo.

“My friends were going on a J1 that summer to America. I had friends who were going travelling, inter-railing, all these wonderful things that at 19 you’re meant to be doing; and I was sitting at home vomiting and feeling sick and sorry and very upset,” she continues.

“I struggled with that. I didn’t want to see my friends. I wanted to be by myself and I know with mental health issues that a lot of people isolate themselves and don’t talk about it. And I think I definitely bottled a lot of it up as a coping mechanism for myself.”

With the support of family and friends, however, and also by going for therapy, Elysha was able to open up about how she was feeling, and, looking back, can appreciate what she learned about herself in the process.

“That was my mountain I had to climb,” she acknowledges.

“I got through it by the good of God and with my family and with medicine, but it’s taught me so many things about life and I kind of have this deep rooted appreciation for living.

“If you wake up and it’s a bad day, it’s a bad day – it’s not a bad life. It really isn’t. And I learned to appreciate the people around me a lot more because I saw the best side of humanity. I really did.”

Before she started her treatment, Elysha wrote a “bucket list” for when she would recover, with everything from climbing Croagh Patrick and standing on top of the Empire State Building to entering the Rose of Tralee.

Not that she says she ever expected to win.

“It’s completely outside of your comfort zone,” she says of stepping into the spotlight last August, “but I think that’s when the best things in life happen, when you take a leap of faith and throw caution to the wind and just go for it.”

Listen to Elysha's advice to anyone interested in entering the Rose of Tralee in our podcast below:

To date, Elysha has travelled to India with the Hope Foundation, conducted a 32-county tour of Ireland and will spend Easter in Lourdes as a volunteer with the Irish Pilgrimage Trust, with trips to America, Australia and Tanzania also in the offing.

However, the most special moments have been the one-on-one interactions with people, such as five-year-old Séarlait Tywang from Kilkenny, who was bravely battling a brain tumour when Elysha met her through children’s cancer charity Aoibheann’s Pink Tie.

Sadly, Séarlait lost her fight in January, but left a lasting impact on Elysha, who has a picture of them together as her phone’s screensaver.

“I think if somebody asked me what was the thing you most cherished over the past six months, it was definitely meeting her,” says Elysha.

“I’m a better person because I met Séarlait. I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have sat in her company. She was an earth angle. She really was.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that after Elysha’s reign as Rose ends, she’s looking forward to returning to her studies to fulfil her ambition of becoming a paediatrician. But she firmly believes that, like all the twists in her journey, the Rose of Tralee was put in her path for a reason.

“All I want is to stand on stage on 23 August and look back on my year and say I did everything I wanted to do and I made some sort of dent in the water and some sort of difference in people’s lives as a kind and loving person,” she says.

“That’s all I want. And if I can do that and that’s a legacy I’ve left behind for the 2015 class, that’s a job well done for me.”

For further information, visit www.roseoftralee.ie. With thanks to Fels Point Hotel, Tralee, which will shortly be relaunched as The Rose Hotel. See www.felspointhotel.com