Rahan woman to represent Offaly in 2022 Miss Macra Festival

Vivienne Ganly (26) from Rahan will compete for Offaly in this year's Miss Macra Festival in Tipperary.

The 2022 International Miss Macra Festival will take place over the August Bank Holiday weekend in Thurles from Friday July 29 to Sunday, July 31 to mark the 50th anniversary festival.

This is Vivienne's first time to compete in the festival. She decided to enter as her friend competed in 2018 and really enjoyed taking part in the Miss Macra festival.

Vivienne works as Clerical Officer in the Department of Education in Athlone and first became involved in Macra when as a teenager by getting involved in a basketball group. “My sister met her fiancé through Macra. He's a Portuguese man and he came here and thought Macra was a good way to meet people. “A lot of people assume it's for farmers or for people primarily from a background but it's for eveyone really. It's more of a social thing.”

Vivienne is the Offaly PRO for Macra which involved updating people about the latest news and events on social media and alerting members as to what the next events are through their WhatsApp group. She also qualified to represent Offaly in Miss Blue Jeans in 2020 and volunteered at the Offaly Macra 75th anniversary event in 2019.

The Rahan woman says that they enjoy a variety of events such as farm walks, monthly meetings, welding presentations and bakery demonstrations along with being represented with a stall at Tullamore Show. Vivienne enjoys cycling, travelling and helping out on the farm as she comes from a beef farm background.

Vivienne is the daughter of John Ganly from Rahan and Paulette Ganly neé Devery from Ferbane.

The International Miss Macra Festival is a 3-day personality competition which is run by Clonoulty/Rossmore Macra na Feirme.

Macra na Feirme is a voluntary, rural youth organisation for those aged 17-35 made up of local clubs which run under a county executive.