As with other works of public art in the region, the statues took on a local colloquial name, and are still commonly known as "Cha and Miah".

[2] Two Working Men became Kelly's second statue on public display, after his acclaimed Children of Lir was unveiled at Dublin's Garden of Remembrance in 1966.

[3] That year, Kelly received a commission for a new statue, to be erected outside Liberty Hall in Dublin, which at the time was Ireland's tallest building and the headquarters of the SIPTU trade union.

The statue's key message is to profile the common "everyday Irish person" admiring the finished product of work in a modern Ireland.

[2] The label derives from the names of two "everyman" Cork characters on the Hall's Pictorial Weekly television show which became popular in the early 1970s.