EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum
EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum is one of Ireland's most celebrated cultural attractions, occupying the vaulted brick cellars of the CHQ Building on Custom House Quay in Dublin's Docklands. Opened in May 2016, the museum has won numerous prestigious awards, including being named Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards in multiple consecutive years, a remarkable achievement for a relatively young institution. The museum tells the story of the Irish diaspora — the millions of people who left Ireland over centuries for destinations across the world — and explores how those emigrants shaped cultures, politics, science, sport, and art far beyond the shores of their homeland. It is an emotionally resonant and technologically sophisticated experience that draws visitors from Ireland and from the global Irish community alike, many of whom come searching for a connection to ancestors who made the difficult journey away from Ireland.
The CHQ Building itself is a landmark of Dublin's heritage. Built in 1820 by John Rennie and later modified by the architect George Papworth, it originally served as a bonded warehouse for storing tobacco, wine, and spirits under customs supervision — hence the name CHQ, standing for Custom House Quay. Its massive vaulted brick chambers and wrought-iron pillars speak to the industrial ambitions of nineteenth-century Dublin, and the building survived decades of neglect before being sensitively restored in the early 2000s. The museum's curators made a deliberate and inspired decision to situate the emigration story within this space, since the quays directly outside were among the very places from which many Irish emigrants departed by boat, giving the location an almost archaeological intimacy with the human stories being told inside.
The museum experience unfolds across 20 interconnected gallery rooms, each themed around different aspects of Irish emigration and diaspora culture. Visitors journey through galleries exploring topics such as famine, religion, the military, art, politics, science, and sport, discovering famous figures of Irish descent including presidents, Nobel laureates, rebels, and entertainers. The entire experience is heavily interactive, making extensive use of touchscreens, projections, audio installations, and personal testimony. The design is immersive and contemporary — warm lighting plays off the ancient brick walls, creating an atmospheric contrast between the rough historical fabric of the building and the sleek digital displays embedded throughout. Sounds shift between gallery rooms: music, spoken word, historical recordings, and ambient soundscapes draw visitors deeper into each theme.
One of the museum's most popular and personally meaningful features is its genealogy suite, where visitors can begin tracing their Irish ancestry. Given that an estimated 70 million people worldwide claim Irish heritage, this facility speaks directly to an enormous global constituency of people for whom Ireland is a distant homeland known mainly through family stories and cultural memory. The museum partners with genealogy organisations and databases to help visitors make real connections to their family histories, and for many people this is the emotional centrepiece of their visit, transforming the broad sweep of history into something personal and immediate.
The surrounding area is one of the most dynamic parts of contemporary Dublin. The Docklands — once a working port district that had fallen into significant decay — has been transformed since the 1990s into a gleaming quarter of modern architecture, tech company headquarters, and cultural venues. The Samuel Beckett Bridge, designed by Santiago Calatrava to resemble a harp, is visible nearby and is one of Dublin's most photogenic modern structures. The Custom House itself, one of James Gandon's finest Georgian masterpieces, stands a short walk away. Across the river, the striking Convention Centre Dublin curves along the quayside. The area hums with pedestrian traffic, outdoor seating, and the particular energy of a city that has reinvented a formerly industrial waterfront.
Getting to EPIC is straightforward. The museum is located only a short walk from the city centre along the north bank of the River Liffey. The DART commuter rail line serves the nearby Connolly Station, and numerous Dublin Bus routes pass through the area. For those arriving by car, there is parking available in the Docklands though the city centre's general congestion means public transport is usually the more practical choice. The museum is fully accessible to wheelchair users and visitors with mobility needs, with lifts serving all levels of the building. Entry is ticketed, with concessions available for families, students, and seniors, and booking in advance online is strongly recommended during the summer tourist season and around major Irish holidays.
A fascinating and little-known detail about the building is that the vaulted cellars in which the museum sits were once used to store and age some of Ireland's finest spirits, with the constant cool temperature and thick brick walls of the underground chambers making them ideal for that purpose. When the restoration uncovered the full extent of these chambers, architects and heritage consultants were struck by how intact the original fabric had remained despite over a century of varied uses and periods of abandonment. The decision to leave much of the raw brickwork exposed throughout the museum was a deliberate preservation and aesthetic choice that gives the entire experience a texture and atmosphere no purpose-built museum could easily replicate — visitors are, in a very literal sense, walking through Irish history while standing inside a piece of it.