Elvis, Imelda May, Glen Hansard & The Gloaming star for Michael D

There was a fine sense in London last night that it was good to be Irish. The final evening of the first ever Irish State visit to the UK since the Free State was declared, not far off a hundred years ago, it felt like a momentous occasion because it was: over the past four days, much good had been done. And the evening of cultural celebration, at the Royal Albert Hall, with the President Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina Higgins in attendance, made a fitting, uplifting night-time finale.

For anyone who remembers the Sense of Ireland event, run by the one-time Project Arts Centre director, John Stephenson, as far back as March 1980, this was an occasion on which to savour how long the road since then has been – and how great the changes that have been wrought in British Irish relations in the interim. The Troubles were still in full flood in the North, in March 1980, and often spilled over into England. John did something very brave at the time, taking Irish culture to the heart of London, with not anything like the level of encouragement or support from the establishment on either side that the initiative merited.

In terms of music, the event featured a gig by the great Rory Gallagher at the Lyceum and – on a secondary bill in the Acklam Hall – a young band by the name of U2. How time can make a mockery of the running order: the latter were supported by the Virgin Prunes – and, together, were supporting an outfit, fronted by Brian Devlin, aka Brian Freeze, who traded under the moniker Berlin. But then, that name too would have had an entirely different significance over 10 years before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Looking back over Bill Graham’s report in Hot Press, dispatched from the Sense of Ireland frontline, music was clearly a very poor cousin to the rest of the arts, in the perception of Irish cultural commissars of the time. Well, not any more. At the Royal Albert Hall last night, a bold selection of the cream of Irish music talent was given centre stage, among them some of the finest songwriters and musicians currently plying their trade anywhere in the world – including carefully selected members of the diaspora like the great Elvis Costello, aka Declan McManus, a second generation Liverpudlian Irish, who ranks amongst the most prolific and gifted popular songwriters of the past 50 years, worthy of being spoken about in the same breath as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits.

From Elvis to Conor O’Brien – the line-up often seemed like a procession of artists that have been championed by Hot Press, reflecting the thoroughly consistent quality of what was on offer onstage. Superbly curated by Other Voices' Philip King, and with musical input from Donal Lunny, at times the music was irresistible.

Glen Hansard took to the mike with the authority of a man who is a musician to the very essence of his marrow: he delivered a magnificently breathy 'Falling Slowly', his wonderful Oscar-winning song, with the beautiful and brilliant Lisa Hannigan handling the harmony vocals with magical sure-footedness.

Magic is not an inappropriate word. There is something ineffable in the alchemy that occurs when musicians of the highest calibre hit their stride, and the sounds come pouring out, to an effect that is utterly unique to the there and then of the moment.

On a night replete with symbolic tracers, Elvis Costello stepped forward to deliver not 'Tramp The Dirt Down' – that would have been too in-your-face – but ‘Shipbuilding’, co-written with record producer Clive Langer. Elvis was joined on vocals by an emerging star in the form of a newly bearded Conor O’Brien of Villagers, on a song about the economic benefits of war that can also be heard as a requiem for a way of life that, in all of its contradictions, kept food on the table of so many working class families throughout parts of Britain and Northern Ireland – including those of a Protestant background in the shipyards of Harland and Wolfe in Belfast. Brilliantly delivered, the song resonated in all sorts of subtle ways.

There were few, if any, concessions in the quality control department. Eimear Quinn sang 'Silent O Moyle' by the renowned Irish bard Thomas Moore beautifully; that was followed by a largely instrumental version of Moore’s 'The Minstrel Boy', with Fiona Shaw reading the lyrics to add a different weight of meaning and drama to one of Ireland’s best known songs.

There were fine spoken word contributions from author Joseph O’Connor, reading from his novel TheThrill of It All and journalist and broadcaster Olivia O’Leary. And then Imelda May, looking more than just stunning, stepped up to sing her sweet and lovely homage to the London Irish of the 1950s and 60s, the country-tinged 'Kentish Town Waltz’, with her husband Darren Higham, a brilliant maestro of the six string, backing her superbly on guitar.

Glen Hansard was master of ceremonies for 'The Auld Triangle', with Elvis, Imelda, Lisa Hannigan, Paul Brady, Andy Irvine of LAPD, Conor O'Brien and finally John Sheahan of The Dubliners all taking their turn to crank out a verse. Again it was a song that resonated intriguingly, recalling old political issues but in a sidelong, gentle way; bringing to life again memories of the Behan brothers, Brendan and Dominic, both Republicans who spent a considerable part of their lives among the expatriate community in England; and also reflecting, without a hint of self-consciousness, the fact that President Michael D Higgins has always been committed to the treatment of those people who, for reasons that are not always as simple or black and white as so many modern commentators now like to pretend, find themselves incarcerated in one prison or another, at any given moment, in Ireland or elsewhere across the world.

To have climaxed with The Gloaming was brave – and indisputably right. I remember when, many years ago, the aforementioned Bill Graham brought the music of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill to my attention for the first time. There was something gently epic in the miniatures they conjured – just the two of them – from the rich raw material of Irish jigs, reels, hornpipes, polkas and airs. Hayes is the kind of quiet virtuoso who hides his uncanny ability behind a front of apparent simplicity. But he has the heart of an alchemist, together with Dennis Cahill conjuring some of the finest Irish traditional music of the past 15 years or so in a way that remains utterly unshowy. Now, in the wider palette of The Gloaming, the nascent epic quality in his music has been allowed to step forward, into the limelight.

First there was a song, sung by the towering figure of Iarla Ó Lionaird, the sean nós singer and former Afro Celt Sound System frontman, uplifting us all with a voice of primal power, backed mainly by the Irish American Thomas Bartlett on piano. And then the five-piece – Ó Lionaird, Hayes, Cahill, Bartlett and Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, also on fiddle – got going in earnest, producing a dizzying mix of straightforward tunes, embellished towards the finale into a melting pot of Irish and jazz learnings that offered a different sense of how this music can be carried forward, into and through the oncoming second century of Irish independence, and our increasingly open engagement with the world, which that independence has inspired.

It was not a night merely for the cosily familiar. Culture is nothing without a willingness to challenge us. The role of the artist is to find new and different ways of looking at the world, the better to illuminate our understanding of our place in it. Last night’s celebration of the State visit of President Michael D. Higgins to England did not shrink in the face of that opportunity. And as a result, it delivered an evening that will live long in the imagination.

Afterwards there was a party.