Actor and producer Alison McKenna wanted a way to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Easter rising and start of Ireland’s independence. Like the Roman god Janus, McKenna wanted to look back and reflect on the past as well as look forward. She developed and is the producer of Salon Éire 100 (Éire is the Celtic name for Ireland), a three-week series of events highlighting Irish poetry, music and literature at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts beginning Friday, May 13.

The events are produced in conjunction with New York Public Library for Performing Arts, the Irish Consulate, the Irish Repertory Theatre Company and the Irish American Historical Society.

“A big resonance of Salon Éire 100 is taking the journey of the artist and how it has been shaped over 100 years and showing the evolution of the nation,” said McKenna. “We are reflecting on 100 years and imagining the future.”

The first event, Salon Éire 100: Poetry Ireland, will be held on Friday, May 13, at 7 PM. Renowned poets Sinéad Morrissey (newly announced 2016 recipient of E.M. Forster Award), Irish American poet Fanny Howe, Nick Laird, Ciaran Berry, and Alvy Carragher will journey through one hundred years of poetry. In addition, world renowned Sean-Nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, who appeared in the film, Brooklyn, will recite.

Conor Linehan, acclaimed pianist and composer of the Abbey TheatreIreland’s National Theatre will lead a musical tour of Irish history on Thursday, May 19 at 6 PM Conor will play and discuss the cultural and political context of music by early twentieth and twenty-first century Irish and Irish related composers, such as Victor Herbert and Arnold Bax, along with excerpts from Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, which commemorates friends of the composer who lost their lives in World War I. He will also perform his own contemporary compositions and improvisations on Irish songs of 1916.

On Friday, May 27 at 7 PM, publishing icon Richard Nash will lead a discussion with up and coming Irish writers Liz Nugent, Danielle McLaughlin and others on what being Irish brings to writing in No Country for Old Men: 21st Century Irish Writers Liz Nugent & Danielle McLaughlin on Transformations Personal & Public.

“The scope of the work is broad and there is something for everyone,” said McKenna. “If you can’t go over and visit and see a concert, we brought the culture here,” she added.

You can begin your own journey through Ireland’s cultural history with the following library materials:

Modern Irish Poetry: A New Alhambra by Frank Sewell
Modern Irish Poetry: A New Alhambra introduces four leading modern Irish-language poets: Seán Ó Riordáin, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Máirtín Ó Direáin, and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

An Anthology Of Modern Irish Poetry edited by Wes Davis
A comprehensive representation of Irish poetic achievement in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from poets such as Austin Clarke and Samuel Beckett who were writing while Yeats and Joyce were still living; to those who came of age in the turbulent ’60s as sectarian violence escalated, including Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley; to a new generation of Irish writers, represented by such diverse, interesting voices as David Wheatley (born 1970) and Sinéad Morrissey (born 1972).

Irish Poetry and the Construction Of Modern Identity: Ireland Between Fantasy And History by Stan Smith
Smith (Nottingham Trent Univ., UK) has written extensively on major 20th-century poets and the origins of literary modernism. Here he traces literary modernism in Ireland through three generations of influence. Beginning with the major modernists, Yeats and Joyce, Smith examines the slow development of Irish nationalism in the modern age.

The Irishness Of Irish Music by John O'Flynn
A brief and recent history of Irish music.

The Rough Guide To Irish Music
Sung in English and Irish Gaelic.

The Joy Of Irish Music: Best-Loved Songs and Folk Tunes In Easy Piano Arrangements selected and arranged by Denes Agay and Frank Metis
Best-loved songs and folk tunes in easy piano arrangements. 37 songs, including: "Danny Boy,"  "Irish March," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Sweet Molly Malone," "The Wearing of the Green," and more.

Twentieth-Century Irish Literature by Aaron Kelly ; consultant editor, Nicolas Tredell
This guide helps the reader to relate Irish literature and criticism to debates surrounding such issues as national identity and nationalism, modernity and the Revival period, armed struggle, gender and sexuality, postcolonialism and the development of Irish studies.

Contemporary Irish Literature: Transforming Tradition by Christina Hunt Mahony
Collects the writings of a broad range of living Irish writers, with an introduction that provides a continuum from the Celtic Twilight to the present day, with sections on poetry, drama and fiction. Award-winning writers are discussed in terms of the role they play within the current Irish literary renaissance in addition to their own individual merits. Chapters on contemporary contributions include literature from Northern Ireland, the work of newly-canonical female writers, and recent innovative work for the stage.

The Literature Of Ireland: Culture And Criticism  by Terence Brown
This volume features essays on major figures such as Yeats, MacNeice, Joyce and Beckett, as well as contemporary authors including Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon and Brian Friel.