Offaly singer to perform at RTE concert to mark 100 years of Irish State

Offaly songstress Tolü Makay will join a star-studded line-up that also features Dermot Kennedy for an RTE concert marking 100 years of the Irish State next month.

The Tullamore singer form part of Ireland 100: An Old Song Re-Sung, which commemorates, in performance, song, music, dance, and spoken word, the hundred years from 1923 - 2023 through the lens of Irish culture.

Global star Dermot Kennedy, and acclaimed trad group featuring Donal Lunny - Moving Hearts - will also perform at the live concert presented by RTÉ and South Wind Blows to mark 100 years of the Irish State as part of the Decade of Centenaries Programme 2012-2023.

Dermot Kennedy and Moving Hearts join a host of previously announced performers and contributors including Damien Dempsey, Aiden Gillen, Colm Mac Con Iomaire and Síle Denvir with Bláth na hÓige and Liam Ó Maonlaí, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Loah, Martin Hayes, FeliSpeaks, Diarmaid Ferriter, Sally Mulready OBE, the London Irish Pensioners Choir and more.  

Ireland 100: An Old Song Re-Sung takes its title from WB Yeats's poem, Down By The Salley Gardens. Yeats was the first Irish Nobel laureate from the newly independent State to win the award in 1923, the year in which the opening of the show is set.

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1923 was also the year that Ireland joined the newly-established League of Nations, thus marking formal recognition and the country's entry into the international community. This moment marks the end of a uniquely transformative period in our history which saw huge social and political change as the developing new State navigated an uncertain future, filled with possibilities.

Applications for free tickets, which opened on September 19, have now closed.The concert will be broadcast on RTÉ One, RTÉ Player and RTÉ Radio 1 on Monday, October 30. 

Ireland 100: An Old Song Re-Sung is supported by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media under the Decade of Centenaries Programme, 2012-2023’.