Entitled
Arrival, the work portrays Irish emigrants debarking from a ship. If this sounds like a typical Famine commemoration, it’s not. As the Irish Minister of State at the Department of Finance Martin Cullen pointed out, it commemorates a “confident Irish people still coming into America, or wherever they may be going into the world.” It is an expression of Ireland’s newfound confidence.
The idea grew out of a visit Irish government officials made to the United Nations, where they observed sculptures donated by various countries. When they asked where the sculpture from Ireland was, they were informed there wasn’t one.