London Rose pays homage to John Hume and Phil Coulter with beautiful rendition of The Town I Loved So Well

On the first night of the 63rd staging of The Rose of Tralee, the talented flautist told co-host Kathyrn Thomas, what the famous Derry tune meant to her.

“I'm going to play ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ by Phil Coulter and the reason why I chose to play this this evening was because in August 2020 after John Hume's passing I wanted to mark his passing in some way and his contribution to the peace process.

"I recorded a video at the time of ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ with myself playing flute and the piano and it kind of went, I suppose, a little bit mini-viral, I'm going to call it, at the time. It went up with thousands of views.

“It was picked up by the Northern Ireland Screen Film Archive and they wanted to collect it as part of their John Hume collection in his memory and then I recorded it. It's a bonus track from my debut album,” she said.

Ms. Gillen’s performance of the air was met with rousing applause at the Dome in the Kerry Sports Academy on Monday evening.

During the opening night of the festival competition it emerged that at least one other Rose has strong links to the North West.

Katie McFadden, the San Francisco Rose, told co-host Dáithí Ó Sé, that, as her name suggests, her paternal grandfather hailed from Donegal.

John Hume 1937-2020 - In Pictures