Expression of Love

This sculpture captures the love. A grandmother shares with her little ones. It is a love that binds the past and the future.

Rose of Tralee - The story of the song, that created the legend, that became the Rose of Tralee. The Rose of Tralee story is based on an ill-fated love between the young poet, William Pembroke Mulchinock and the girl from the “wrong-side-of-the-tracks’, Mary O’Connor. William was from the Big House and she was a dairymaid on the farm.

They met and fell in love. He wrote the song the Rose of Tralee, for her. In June 1843, when Daniel O’Connell was at the height of his political powers, there was a large election rally in Tralee. Following a sword-fight, the young poet, Mulchinock, was accused of the murder of a soldier in Tralee. William fled to Fenit, just north of Tralee in County Kerry and took ship to India. There he became a war correspondent associated with the British Army in India.

Six years later having received a pardon, her returned to Tralee. On his return, he was in time to observe a funeral as he rested after his travels at the Brogue Inn at Rock Street. On inquiring who the funeral was for he was told it was that of young Mary O’Connor. The Rose of Tralee, who had died of broken heart.

Mulchinock later went to America and had some success as a newspaper correspondent. He died aged 46 and is buried in Clogherbrien, Tralee, beside Mary. The song has lived on and is inspiring and haunting air. The Rose of Tralee has reached and become known in almost every corner of the world where Irish people gather.

Hunter Valley Gardens were created to delight garden lovers now and for generations to come.

- Sculptor Linda Klarfel -