Ellis Island at the Royal Albert Hall

Band releases powerful celebration of migration

The moment fans were stunned to silence

We’ve released a new video of our song ‘Ellis Island’ performed live during Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall 2025.

The song is named after the island in New York Harbour which was once home to the busiest immigration processing centre in the United States. The tune is an anthem of migration, a paean to the search for refuge and the countries that have provided it, offering the opportunity of a better life. At its heart are also the challenges of migrating - and the pain of leaving your homeland. 

Andrea Corr told fans at the Royal Albert Hall on March 28: “This is a song that’s about emigration. It’s always an incredibly relevant topic, more poignant every day. It’s about the Irish getting a chance when they fled Ireland and sought refuge elsewhere. Here is one of the places, of course, and, yeah, the USA. It’s called Ellis Island.”

The performance stunned the audience to silence. ‘Ellis Island’ first appeared on The Corrs’ 2015 album White Light.

Andrea Corr told the audience: “This place is very dear to our hearts. It was a completely pivotal moment in our career. We were a little bit younger than we are now. Our music was being put generally in the folk section in the archives of record stores. They didn’t really know where to put us, the combination of the traditional Irish and pop rock, the ‘prock’, if we’re going to go full ‘Spinal Tap’. That all changed because we capitalised on our Irishness…because it was St Patrick’s Day and it was broadcast on the BBC - that changed our trajectory. This place is where it happened so it’s really special to play here.

“The charity, Teenage Cancer Trust - it’s incredible what they do, supporting these teenagers that are even more vulnerable than teenagers are already. Let’s blow the roof off tonight.”