WATCH: Irish Ambassador says new Entangled Islands exhibition tells “complex history we’re not shying away from” as delegation begins week-long cultural exchange

Despite being separated by nearly 4,000 miles of deep blue ocean, Antigua and Barbuda and the Republic of Ireland share a complicated yet common story— shaped by colonization, migration and resilience.

As much of the Global North continues to reckon with its slavery past, Ireland stands among those willing to tell its own story in full — one of toiling the soil as indentured labourers, but also one of holding the whip.

Centuries later, that tangled inheritance is the story Ireland will tell this week, as Ireland’s Ambassador to Antigua and Barbuda, John Concannon, leads a delegation of musicians, dancers, and historians to open Entangled Islands – Ireland and the Caribbean as the inaugural exhibition of the newly renovated Government House on Monday.

Accompanied by Shane Ryan, Director of Ireland’s Office for the Caribbean, the Ambassador speaking to Antigua.News framed the week-long programme of cultural engagements as part of a broader deepened of Irish-Caribbean relations.

Ryan added the exhibition’s arrival in Antigua followed a chain of personal encounters with the Governor General Sir Rodney Williams and Lady Sandra Williams.

The exhibition, developed by EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin, traces four centuries of connection between Ireland and the Caribbean through stories of Irish indentured labourers and Irish enslavers to poets, abolitionists, and journalists.

It previously showed in Barbados before coming to Antigua.

The curator of Entangled Islands, Dr Catherine Healy, will accompany the delegation on school visits during the week, including to ABICE on Monday morning, to explain the history directly to students and faculty.