Centenary Circle

Inspired by Ireland's decade of centenaries, which coincides with the arrival of this new international cultural home in New York City, and in tribute to capital campaign supporters who have contributed $100,000 or more to make this dream a reality, we offer this ascending literary tribute to poets and patrons: a collage of excerpts from Irish poetry curated by the writer Belinda McKeon.

Each passage was carefully chosen to reflect the values of creativity and welcome that are at the core of Irish Arts Center and its people.

Our thanks to the poets, and their publishers and estates, for generously granting permission for these words to be a permanent installation in our new home. Please scan below to see the complete list of works and credits.

Centenary Circle Poetry Installation

Curated by Belinda McKeon

"Donal Og" by Anonymous (translated by Augusta Gregory)
"St. Patrick's Breastplate" by Anonymous (translated by Kuno Meyer)
"The Emigrant Irish" by Eavan Boland, Outside History: Selected Poems 1980-1990 (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016)
"Anna Liffey" by Eavan Boland, A Poet's Dublin (W.W. Norton & Company, 2016)
"Derry" by Collete Bryce, Selected Poems (Picador, 2017)
"Old Skibbereen" by Patrick Carpenter
"The Planter's Daughter" by Austin Clarke, Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2008)
"Winter" by Jane Clarke, The River (Bloodaxe Books, 2015)
"The Boys of Barr na Stráide" by Patrick Carpenter
"Oweniny, Upper Reaches" by Harry Clifton, The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass (Wake Forest University Press, 2012)
"An Scáthán / The Mirror" by Michael Davitt (translated by Paul Muldoon), Quoof (Faber, 1983)
"Going Home to Mayo, Winter, 1949" by Paul Durcan, Sam's Cross (Profile Press, 1978)
"Egg" by Elaine Feeley, Rise (Ireland: Salmon Poetry, 2017)
"Mare at Large" by Miriam Gamble, What Planet (Bloodaxe Books, 2019)
"Among the Barley" by Alan Gillis, Hawks and Doves (Gallery Books, 2007)
"The Family Photograph" by Vona Groarke, X (Gallery Books, 2014)
The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990)
"Elegy" by Seamus Heaney, Field Work (Faber, 1979)
"Inniskeen Road: July Evening"  by Patrick Kavanaugh, Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004)
"Innocence" by Patrick Kavanaugh, Collected Poems, edited by Antoinette Quinn (Allen Lane, 2004)
"I See You Dancing, Father" by Brendan Kennelly, Familiar Strangers: New & Selected Poems 1960-2004 (Bloodaxe Books, 2004)
"Personal Places"  by Thomas Kinsella, Personal Places (Carcanet Press, 1990)
"New York ElastiCity" by Nick Laird, Feel Free (Faber & Faber, 2019)
"The Leveret" by Michael Longley, A Hundred Doors (Wake Forest University Press, 2011)
"Snow" by Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems (Faber & Faber, 2007)
"Dawn at St. Patricks" by Derek Mahon, The Poems (1961-2020) (Gallery Books, 2021)
"The Seed-Picture" by Medbh McGuckian, The Unfixed Horizon: New Selected Poems (Wake Forest University Press, 2015)
"Of Natal Charts and End Games" by Paula Meehan, MUSEUM (Dublin City Council Culture Company & Dublin City Council, 2019)
"Beannacht" by John Montague, The Love Poems (Exile Editions, 1992)
"Augustine Sleeping Before He Can Talk" by Sinéad Morrissey, Through the Square Window (Carcanet Press, 2009)
"In the year of the hurricane" by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Collected Poems (Gallery Books, 2020)
"Sólás/Solace" by Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Lies (Dedalus Press, 2018)
"Fiction" by Conor O'Callaghan, Fiction (Wake Forest University Press, 2005)
"Beannacht" by John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us (Doubleday, 2008)
"Vigil" by Dennis O'Driscoll, New and Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2004)
"January Aubade" by Mary O'Malley, Playing the Octopus (Carcanet Press, 2016)
"Six Landscapes" by Caitriona O'Reilly, The Sea Cabinet (Bloodaxe Books, 2006)
"Elements" by Michelle O'Sullivan The Flower and the Frozen Sea (Gallery Books, 2015)
"The Mining Road" by Leanne O'Sullivan, The Mining Road (Bloodaxe Books, 2013)
"McKenna's Tunes" by Vincent Woods, fermata (Artisan House, 2016)
"Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by W.B. Yeats