{"id":595442,"date":"2026-08-16T23:20:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595442\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T23:20:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:20:25","slug":"lexi-flying-cork-flag-in-rose-of-tralee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/595442\/","title":{"rendered":"Lexi flying Cork flag in Rose of Tralee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">\u201cI\u2019m going to do everything I can to make my mother proud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Those were the words of Lexi Linnane as she prepared to represent her home county of Cork in the Rose of Tralee festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Lexi\u2019s mother, Tracey, tragically died three years ago after suffering a devastating stroke at the age of 37.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">After being crowned Cork Rose, Lexi vowed in an interview with  The Echo\u2019s WOW! supplement to use her platform this year to raise public awareness of stroke symptoms, and in particular how it\u2019s something that can impact people of all ages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">She has just completed her first year of Early Year Childhood studies at UCC, and is among the 32 Roses who will line up in the annual event, televised on RT\u00c91 on Monday and Tuesday at 8pm, with a break for the news at 9pm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Hosts D\u00e1ith\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 and Kathryn Thomas will interview the Roses in the festival dome in Tralee before the winner is announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The event is now in its 66th year, and Lexi, a former pupil of Col\u00e1iste Daibh\u00e9id in Ballintemple, will be aiming to be the fourth Rebel winner, and the first one this century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Previous Cork winners were Josie Ruane in 1961, Denise Murphy in 1991, and Geraldine O\u2019Grady in 1999.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Lexi is the social media manager and content creator for Mahon Point Shopping Centre, and also teaches dance and musical theatre, inspired by her late mother.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cMom was one of the healthiest and fittest people I knew \u2013 her stroke was completely unexpected,\u201d said 19-year-old Lexi. \u201cIt was absolutely horrific, devastating,\u201d she remembers of her death.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Tracey, a popular member of her community, ran Footdreams Performing Arts studio at the Mahon Point community room for 17 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Lexi is currently 12-1 to win the Rose of Tralee with bookies Paddy Power, with the early favourites being New York Rose Ciara McGinty and London Rose Ciara Aobh Fallon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m going to do everything I can to make my mother proud.\u201d Those were the words of Lexi&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60],"class_list":["post-595442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}