The vision of heroic Irishness represented by Irish monuments has remained rather monolithic since the late nineteenth century Gaelic revival and in recent years various feminist, queer, and postcolonial scholars have identified its many exclusions. Kathryn A. Conrad argues that Irishness, so rooted in Catholic values, repudiates homosexuality, while Diane Negra observes that Irishness is inextricable from whiteness and expels non-white racial identities. This paper proposes that two atypical examples of public statuary erected during the transformative ‘Celtic Tiger’ period of modern Ireland (1993-2007) provide evidence of changing perceptions of Irish identity in the wake of recent unprecedented immigration and ensuing racial tensions. The commemorative statues of Oscar Wilde (1997), an Anglo-Irish nationalist homosexual writer, and Philip Lynott (2006), a mixed race nationalist rock star provide a placatory version of contemporary Irishness that addresses the ‘authenticity’ requirement (both Irish by ‘blood’) of conservative nationalism, while presenting the possibility of greater inclusivity.