"Arrival" (small model)

Detail from "Arrival"

John Behan - Born in Dublin in 1938. Studied in Dublin, London and Oslo.

Interview with John Behan (Famine Ship, 1997 Murrisk, Westport, Co Mayo): http://www.sculptors-society.ie/newsletter.html#Behan 

more about The Great Hunger

more about the potato disease

The Famine & John Behan

  "Arrival" - "Coffin Ship"

"ARRIVAL"- IRISH GIFT TO THE UNITED NATIONS

"The Office of Public Works, on behalf of the Irish Government have commissioned a Famine Ship Sculpture, entitled "Arrival" by artist John Behan, which the Taoiseach will present to the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Anan, in late Autumn. The ship will be sited on the Plaza, by the river, at the UN Headquarters in New York. 

The bronze sculpture, measuring some 7 metres in length and 8 metres in height, will be a variation on the National Famine Memorial at Murrisk, Co. Mayo, on the West Coast of Ireland. In place of the heavily symbolic skeletal rigging at Murrisk, the human element in the UN sculpture will be represented by survivors of the trip disembarking in the United States of America. A total of some 150 figures will be cast in bronze, the majority on deck, with a small number descending the gangplanks."

from: http://www.governmentsuppliesagency.ie/july.htm