The one exception, naturally, was an American. Maggie Flaherty, who took home the crown in 1974 as the Rose of New York, thought her dress looked like it was produced for a circus act. She overcame the Barnum & Bailey-ness of her frock, only to later realize, upon her return to Manhattan, that boasting about her new laurel was pointless.

“What am I supposed to say, that I’m the Rose of Tralee?” she asked with a chuckle during a post-exhibition interview. “Nobody knows what it is. It’s like, ‘That’s nice. What’s for dinner?’”

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Some of the party pieces this year seem destined to join others over the decades as touchstones of national memory. The Kilkenny Rose, Clodagh Cassin, dressed Mr. O Se in the protective gear of a hockey goalie and then pelted him with plastic balls. The Rose of New York taught Mr. O Se Greek phrases while he downed shots of ouzo, a perfect-for-any-other-evening tribute to her father’s roots in Cyprus.

The Rose of Ohio may have bested all comers, though, when she presented what was essentially a life hack: how to open a bottle of wine by slipping it into a boot and then slamming the boot, over and over, against the side of a table.

“Yes world,” tweeted someone named Conrad Brunstrom, “we have a competition you can try and win by opening a bottle of wine with a shoe.”

The ending was a suitably drawn-out affair. Mr. O Se unsealed the envelope with the name of the winner, then let a good 15 seconds of silence pass before he shouted one word: “Limerick!”