Epic-the-irish-emigration-museum-entrance-chq

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum, located in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

's Docklands, covers the history of the

Irish diaspora The Irish diaspora ( ga, Diaspóra na nGael) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland. The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner and Meeder, The ...

and emigration to other countries. It was designed by the London-based design firm

Event Communications Event Communications, or Event, is one of Europe's longest-established and largest museum and visitor attraction design firms; it is headquartered in London. History The firm was founded in 1986 by businesswoman Celestine ("Cel") Phelan and des ...

, and was voted as "Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction" at the 2019, 2020 and 2021 World Travel Awards.

Creation

EPIC is a privately owned museum, founded by

Neville Isdell Edward Neville Isdell (born 8 June 1943 in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland) is an Irish businessman, former chair and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company and currently president of the WWF. Early life and career Isdell moved to Zambia at the age of ten, ...

, former chairman and chief executive of

The Coca-Cola Company The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation founded in 1892, best known as the producer of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, ...

, who was born in

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

. During 2015, an advisory group was assembled to consult on the development of EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum. In May 2016, EPIC was officially opened by former President of Ireland

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson ( ga, Máire Mhic Róibín; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her electi ...

. EPIC is located in the vaults of the

CHQ Building The CHQ Building, formerly known as Stack A, is an industrial building in Dublin, Ireland. CHQ stands for "Custom House Quay", named for the nearby Custom House. Known as the Tobacco Store to dockworkers, it was built in 1820 to store cargos o ...

, a listed building originally built in 1820 by John Rennie and completed by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotla ...

for use as a bonded customs warehouse. The building was restored by the DDDA in the early 2000s. The exhibition was designed and developed by a London-based specialist museum design consultancy called Event Communications that had also designed the award-winning

Titanic Belfast ''Titanic'' Belfast is a visitor attraction opened in 2012, a monument to Belfast's maritime heritage on the site of the former Harland & Wolff shipyard in the city's Titanic Quarter where the RMS ''Titanic'' was built. It tells the stories ...

attraction. At its opening in 2016, the ''

Irish Independent The ''Irish Independent'' is an Irish daily newspaper and online publication which is owned by Independent News & Media (INM), a subsidiary of Mediahuis. The newspaper version often includes glossy magazines. Traditionally a broadsheet new ...

'' reported that Isdell has invested Euro 15 million in the project, and that "my experience was of a bold series of 20 galleries slickly fitted with at times breathtakingly immersive technology-driven displays". The ''

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'' described EPIC as "the world’s first fully digital museum and had 120,000 visitors in its first year", when it was nominated for the

European Museum of the Year Award The European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) is presented each year by the European Museum Forum (European Museum Forum, EMF) under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The EMYA is considered the most important annual award in the European mu ...

in 2018. EPIC went on to win ''Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction'' at the World Travel Awards in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Exhibits

EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum Dublin Ireland

The exhibition is made up of twenty galleries which are each individually themed, and fall under the headings of Migration (Galleries 1 to 2), Motivation (Galleries 4 to 7), Influence (Galleries 8 to 18) and Diaspora Today (Galleries 19 to 20). The "Migration" galleries, for example, deal with migration patterns from Ireland since 500AD. These galleries cover religious missionary work, the

Irish famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...

, religious and social persecution, criminal transportation, and the effects of Irish involvement in foreign conflicts. Displays include a series of video testimonies from six Irish emigrants.

References

External links

EPIC the Irish Emigration Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum Museums in Dublin (city) History museums in the Republic of Ireland Irish diaspora Dublin Docklands 2016 establishments in Ireland Museums established in 2016

Creation

Exhibits

See also

References

External links