Home is where the heart for Maria

STAR ATTRACTION?Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh arrived home to Shrule in an open top car.?Pic: Ray Ryan

Home is where the heart is for Maria

Willie McHugh

THIS is as good as it gets. Over 1500 people gathered in Shrule village on Thursday night last to welcome home newly-crowned Rose of Tralee Maria Walsh. Credit too to the organisers who pulled out all the stops in arranging the homecoming at short notice.
They had the minimum of time to turn it around, only getting the official word earlier that afternoon that the girl who won the heart of the nation only two nights before was returning home.
But what a welcome she returned to. She may have represented Philadelphia in Tralee, but Shrule and Mayo had claimed her back. From early evening well-wishers gathered in the village green. Banner waving children wearing Mayo jerseys. Tonight they all wanted to be Maria Walsh and a better role model they couldn’t adopt to pin their dreams on.
She was running a tad late but nights like this are ever worth waiting for. In whiling away the time thoughts turned to when Shrule last hosted an event of this magnitude. Some suggested perhaps it was a September Monday night in 1999 when the Mayo ladies returned as All-Ireland champions. Or maybe a June evening in 1976 and the arrival of a newly-ordained Father Michael Reilly from up the road in Carramore.
All eyes were trained across the Black River and the road above Holleran’s house. Then all bedlam broke loose when the girl all Shrule was waiting for came over the bridge.
Bonfires blazed as flares and fireworks illuminated the night sky. Mobile phones and cameras flashed capturing the moment for posterity and Shrule lit up like the main control tower at Cape Canaveral.
Slowly down the village, through the throngs of well-wishers she went, led by a garda escort as the tiara and jewels of victory she was wearing glowed in the dusk of a Shrule evening.
Children left their mother’s grasp in an effort to get closer. People rushed forward with outstretched hands to welcome their star home to Shrule and Mayo.
From there it was onto a packed to overflowing Community Centre where she was joined on stage by her parents Vincent and Noreen, her sister Eileen, and brother Michael. Music pumped from speakers as a packed hall applauded the young woman who did everyone proud.
Rita Davin read out a tribute to Maria acknowledging her amazing achievement and the honour and glory she brought to the village on the borderlines of Galway and Mayo. Afterwards revellers were plied with copious cups of tea, soft drinks and biscuits. It was plenty good because joyful and unbridled emotions need no stronger substances.
Then the Rose of Tralee posed for photographs, ‘selfies’ and spent time mingling and chatting with young and old alike.
Maria Walsh coming home to Shrule as the ‘2014 International Rose of Tralee’ was the greatest homecoming of all.