Stars come together for special 1916 Centenary concert

Some of Ireland’s best known singers, musicians and performers including Imelda May, Gavin James and CoisCéim and aerialists Fidget Feet, will come together for Centenary, a special one-off cultural celebration, which tells the story of modern Ireland through music, dance and song.

The show will be broadcast live from Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on RTÉ One on Easter Monday and executive producer, Cilian Fennell, says he is excited to see the project, which began last summer, coming to life.

He says that it was important to make the cultural celebration "a show and not a concert". "Sometimes there are things like the Cultural Awakening that you can only tell by dance or there are parts of building the whole movement that dance gives a real expression to. There is a scene in the show involving waltzing that I can hardly speak about without getting emotional.

"I always thought that there was a huge story in this. It wasn't just a military thing," Fennell added, referring to the 1916 Rising. "There was the cultural element of it, the imagination element, then there was the social and protesting element, and then there was the military element. Of course, once it was done, a lot of people felt we had to build a state after it.

"I always thought it would be nice to link everything in and not just finish at the Rising but carry it on a little bit and show how the State was founded. It's a tribute to not just the people involved in the Rising but the generations since them who built the Republic we have now," he added.

Centenary Executive Producer Cilian Fennell  

Dance troupes from across Ireland will take centre stage on the night along along with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and choirs from around the country to perform songs that have become part of the Irish psyche. There will also be musical performances from the historically significant locations of Kilmainham Gaol and The Garden of Remembrance in Dublin. 

"We weren't asking anyone to come on and sing their latest single, we were asking them to be part of our story and to sing particular songs that were selected carefully," Fennell said. "It was just about getting the right artists and dancers to be able to express that."

The backdrop for Centenary which will be broadcast live from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre

Dance group Fidget Feet said they felt "inspired and blessed" working on Centenary and admitted they were relieved to see the raven scene (below) going off without a hitch during rehearsals.

High-flyer: A raven swoops across the stage 

"This is different for us because it is a live TV performance and my first experience working on TV," Fidget Feet member Chantal McCormick said, "It's very cool for us. When we make shows we make them on very small budgets and we could only ever dream about being involved in a project of this scale. We are so blessed".

Let's dance! Fidget Feet members Sianna Bruce and Chantal McCormick 

As part of the show, Danny O’Reilly from The Coronas has joined forces with his sister Róisín O and cousin Aoife Scott to record a very special version of The Dubliners' classic Grace live in Kilmanham Gaol. 

Centenary will be broadcast live on RTÉ One and to the Irish diaspora around the world on the RTÉ Player International on Easter Monday from 9:35pm. To download the Centenary programme of events, click here.