EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum

EPIC opened in 2016 in the vaults of the CHQ Building, a former tobacco and wine warehouse on the quays from which emigrants actually sailed. It has no objects. The entire museum is digital - twenty galleries of screens, projections, soundscapes and interactive displays, with a stamped passport carried through them - and that choice is the thing visitors either accept or resent. The subject is the roughly ten million people who left Ireland over the centuries and the seventy million worldwide who claim Irish descent: why they went, where they landed, and what they did there, covering the famous and the ordinary, and including the uncomfortable parts such as Irish involvement in slavery and in colonial administration alongside the more celebrated. It was shortlisted for the European Museum of the Year Award in 2018 and named Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The Irish Family History Centre in the same building offers paid genealogy consultations.

What to look for

• The twenty digital galleries - screens, projection and sound, no artefacts.
• The emigration story - ten million departures and where they went.
• The uncomfortable chapters - Irish roles in slavery and colonial rule included.
• The CHQ vaults - a quayside warehouse emigrants actually sailed from.

When to go

Any season; entirely indoors. Two hours for the full circuit. Quieter on weekday mornings; cruise-ship days are busy.

What to expect

There are no objects at all - it is screens throughout, which some visitors find hollow. Ticketed and among the more expensive Dublin museums. The genealogy service is a separate paid consultation.

Nearby

The Jeanie Johnston famine ship replica is moored close by; the Samuel Beckett Bridge is east.

Key facts