The American trying to introduce kids’ pageants to Ireland has vowed to organise another show next month despite a public outcry.

The Texas based Universal Royalty organisation intends to hold a Christmas themed beauty contest for children in December.

Company boss Annette Hill has confirmed to the Irish Sun newspaper that she will press ahead with the planned pageant.

Hill made the pledge despite criticism of her company’s first show in September when she struggled to find a venue prepared to host the event and eventually ended up in a Monaghan pub.
Speaking to the paper, Hill said: “I was fighting tooth and nail, all the way through the pageant, all the way here from America it was fighting the whole time.

“I don’t know if I want to go through this again, but looking at the winners they’re so happy.

“We proved a point, we had a pageant. The parents wanted it, we had it for them. Boy, there’s going to be different stuff next time around.”

Hill made her comments ahead of a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the pageant which will air on Irish state broadcaster RTE on Monday night.

The documentary shows girls aged from 18 months to 14 years dressed in bikinis and ballgowns at the first Irish pageant when only 20 contestants took part in beauty, talent and Irish theme-wear rounds.

Hill has blamed negative stories in the Irish media for all the difficulties.

She also insisted that she’ll be better prepared when she returns on December 14.

She fumed: “We wouldn’t have had a circus-type of atmosphere if it hadn’t been the media saying ‘Oh they’re corrupting the kids or sexualising the kids’.

“This was a preliminary where we iron out the kinks and work out what we gotta do the next time. I gotta lot to work out and I don’t think I’ll be involving the media next time.”

The Texan is adamant that Ireland can host regular events on the beauty pageant circuit.

She said: “We want to make Ireland the next international place where we have a pageant every year. I wouldn’t be traveling all the way from America to Ireland for a pageant if they didn’t want me to come.”