Turmoil for Rose of Tralee company as shareholder sues for repayment of €96,000 loan

The company behind the Rose of Tralee festival has been plunged into turmoil after the initiation of a lawsuit by one of its shareholders seeking the repayment of a loan of close to €100,000.

The case is being taken by US-based hotelier Dick Henggeler, who owns just under a third of the company, ­Kerry Rose Festival Limited.

Mr Henggeler’s daughter Dorothy was the 2011 Washington Rose but died tragically from a brain tumour in 2014. The following year, Mr Henggeler and his Killarney-born wife Eibhlin bought the Fels Point Hotel in the Co Kerry town, which at that point had been home to the festival for seven years.

They extensively refurbished and expanded the premises and renamed it The Rose Hotel. But the festival’s association with the hotel ended in 2022, when it began using another hotel in the town, the Meadowlands, while the televised selection event moved from a traditional marquee dome to the Munster Technological University.

It is understood that in recent times, unhappy differences emerged between Mr Henggeler and the festival company.

He is now suing for the repayment of a loan of over €96,400 advanced to the company. The shareholder loan is recorded in the company’s most ­recently filed accounts.

The legal proceedings were initiated in the High Court in Dublin on Tuesday, with the matter being described as a liquidated debt case.

Mr Henggeler is being represented by Tralee solicitors’ firm Cadogan O’Regan.

The firm declined to comment, while Mr Henggeler did not respond to a request for comment from the Irish Independent, submitted via his lawyers.

Festival company chief executive Anthony O’Gara, who owns 55pc of the company, said he was unaware of the case.

“Nothing has been served on us and we are not aware of it yet, but presumably we will be served in the next day or two,” Mr O’Gara said.

“So, we won’t be making any comment on it for the moment. We will have to see what Mr Henggeler is saying.”

It is understood the loan was advanced some time ago, when Mr Henggeler became a shareholder in the festival company.

Last November, Mr O’Gara dismissed reports that there had been an attempt by some investors to wrest control of company.

Mr Henggeler is based in Ellicott, a city near Baltimore, Maryland, and was previously based in Texas.

He set up a computer consultancy firm in 1996, which he sold in 2011.

Fels Point Hotel was valued at €4m when it was purchased by Mr Henggeler and his wife four years later.

The hotel’s website said the highlight of their daughter Dorothy’s life was when she became the Washington Rose and attended the festival in 2011.

Dorothy, or Dott as she was known, later got her “dream job” working for Tourism Ireland in Manhattan before her death.

The website said her parents “seemed to be guided” by her when they purchased the hotel and that it was part of her legacy.

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