Ireland 100 review: Dermot Kennedy, Denise Chaila, and the Pensioners Choir shine at RTÉ concert
Dermot Kennedy performing at Ireland 100: An Old Song Resung at the RDS in Dublin. Picture: Andres Poveda
Dozens of Irish musicians took to the RDS on Saturday for Ireland 100: An Old Song Resung. Taking its name from the original title of WB Yeats’ poem ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’, the event is part of the Decade of Centenaries and saw well-established musicians such as Dermot Kennedy, Damien Dempsey, Martin Hayes, and Lisa Hannigan performing alongside newer acts like SELLÓ, Tolü Makay, and Steo Wall, interspersed with poetry and spoken word pieces from FeliSpeaks, Paula Meehan, Diarmaid Ferriter, and Anne Enright, among many others.
Some 200 artists and behind-the-scenes workers were involved. Tickets were free, available via application, and the event was filmed, to be broadcast on RTÉ One, RTÉ Radio 1, and RTÉ Player on bank holiday Monday, October 30.
Presented by South Wind Blows, its executive producer Nuala O’Connor explains that the idea behind the event was to show, through performance, songs, words, and music, “an appreciation of where we have come from, of what we have come through as a people and a State, and of our experiences living through the 20th and the first quarter of the 21st century”.
The outstanding, emotional highlight of the show, however, didn’t feature any big names, but rather was the London Irish Pensioners Choir (billed in the programme as the London Irish Elders Choir). It’s conducted by Nora Mulready, a daughter of the campaigner Sally Mulready, and, as the name suggests, features emigrants aged up to their 90s, all of whom have their own stories of how they came to London.
That it shortly followed a clip about the mother and baby homes is no coincidence. Their performance of ‘My Home in Donegal’ (“This is my homeland, the place I was born in, no matter where I go it’s in my soul”) was a tear-inducing triumph.
Other standout moments of the show include Denise Chaila’s spoken-word ‘Dual Citizenship’, performed on a pedestal among the crowd, which confronts prejudice and the loaded question of ‘where are you from originally?’ that faces many of the new Irish.
Tolü Makay paid tribute to the late Sinéad O’Connor with a tingling version of ‘The Last Days of our Acquaintance’, accompanied by the incredible Old Song Resung House Band. Loah, who looks like a princess in a stunning white gown, wowed with her version of ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’.
The show also reflected on key moments of change from 100 years as a Free State, taking its starting point as 1923, when Ireland joined the League of Nations and Yeats won the Nobel prize in literature, the latter of which is marked in the show by actor Aidan Gillen.
Dara Ó Cinnéide took a few moments to talk, as Gaeilge, about sport and culture; TV producer Lelia Doolan discussed the arrival of television; and Paula Meehan reminisced about growing up in Herbert Simms’ Dublin. It all felt a little random, though, like Reeling in the Years redux. Of course we’ll reserve final judgement for the final broadcast at the end of the month, but as a live event, there were some very special moments on the night that will live long in the memory.
