Cara Molloy, a 19-year-old student from the Andersontown of West Belfast, is this year’s Edinburgh Mary.
Sponsored by the Edinburgh Emerald Irish Social Group, Cara is passionate about the Irish language.
Cara told The Irish World: “It means so much to me that I’ve been selected in a city which is really my second home.
“It’s such an honour to be Edinburgh Mary.
“I’ve got so much to showcase here and to really showcase the Irish culture that we have here
“There’s such a relationship between Scottish culture and Irish culture, Celts stick together so it would be great to really showcase that close knit relationship as well.”
Cara has only heard about the Mary From Dungloe festival relatively recently.
“I moved over here for uni last year.
“I’m doing performance costume at University of Edinburgh.
“I have a lot to do with the Irish Society here.
“I actually became a first year rep and it was really, really great.
“I was quite home sick and making really good friends with the Irish society was so invaluable.
“I found out about Mary from Dungloe because I was at a debate that one of my friends was in.
“The question was, ‘Is Irish culture more valuable if it’s celebrated at home or abroad?’
“I just went to go to support her.
“I wasn’t really supposed to be speaking and I noticed, ‘There’s nobody from the North on this panel. Their experience of Irish culture is obviously very different..’
“And there was an opportunity for people to speak and ask questions so I got on the soapbox about that and about the Irish language and stuff.”
It was after this that Cara was approached for the Edinburgh Mary from Dungloe.
“(She said), ‘I just heard you speak and I think you’d be a really good representative. Would you be interested?’
“And I said yes, I would have to do my research and stuff on it but provisionally yes.
“I went home, did my research and fell completely in love with the whole thing.
“I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of it.
“It’s nothing to do with your beauty, it’s to do with representing Irish culture and especially among the diasporas because there’s a Glasgow Mary but there’s people from further afield, there’s Philadelphia and there’s New York and UAE representatives.
“I just think it’s really good to come together and celebrate that and especially if it gives young girls role models.
“I just fell completely in love with it from then.”
On being crowned Edinburgh Mary Cara says: “I really couldn’t believe it.
“I honestly didn’t think I was in with a chance because I thought they would maybe pick somebody from Edinburgh but they said, ‘No, you speak Irish and we think you’re the best candidate for it’.
“It was so surreal, it really was.
“I was watching last year’s Crowning Cabaret on TG4 and I just struggle to believe that that is going to be me in a couple of weeks.
“I was like, ‘What do you mean I’m going to be onstage with Daniel O’Donnell? What are you talking about?’
“It’s still really sinking in.
“I’ve met actually a couple of Marys already, the Ulster Mary and the Wild Atlantic Mary when I was home in Belfast.
“It’s kind of starting to sink in now that I’m meeting everybody.
“It makes me feel a little bit more at ease because they’re just normal girls.
“They’re so lovely and so down to earth.
“I’m so looking forward to it.”
Asked what she is looking forward to about the experience Cara says: “Well the opportunity to speak Irish, it’s going to be great for me because I’m actually a learner.
“I didn’t grow up speaking Irish.
“Just to be able to speak it fluently again is going to be so great and just meeting the Marys, and especially the trad music.
“I don’t play trad but I sing, and I think that’ll be good to just have little sessions everywhere.
“Everyone who’s done it before, even Maria (O’Donnell, 2025 Edinburgh Mary) said, ‘You just need to enjoy it all and soak it all in. It’s going to be the time of your life’, so I’m just looking forward to everything.”
What would it mean to be crowned as the Mary from Dungloe?
“I can’t even think about it because it would be so surreal.
“I’m only in it for the craic.
“I’m only in it to have a bit of fun.
“I’m mostly in it to be making friends and enjoy the experience and showcase myself and celebrate culture.
“It would be amazing (if I won).
“It would be so surreal.
“It would be a great honour, and an amazing, amazing honour to have and it’s a lot of responsibility too.”