EPIC is a privately owned museum, founded by Neville Isdell, former chairman and Chief Executive of The Coca-Cola Company, who was born in County Down. 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 IrelandMary Robinson. EPIC is located in the vaults of CHQ Building, a listed building originally known as Stack A and built in 1820 by John Rennie and completed by Thomas Telford; it was used as a bonded customs warehouse for tobacco and wine. CHQ was conserved and 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 attraction. At its opening in 2016, the Irish Independent 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 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 in 2018. EPIC went on to win the World Travel Awards for Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction in 2019.
Exhibits
The exhibition is made up of twenty galleries which are each individually themed, and fall under the headings of Migration, Motivation, Influence and Diaspora Today.
The "Migration" galleries deal with migration patterns from Ireland since 500AD. The "Motivation" galleries cover religious missionary work, the Irish famine, 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, including Thomas Quinn, who emigrated from County Roscommon, in 1847 at age six to begin a new life in Canada.
The "Influence" section covers notable Irish immigrants in the world of business, sports, science and inventors, political leaders and thinkers, music, dance and entertainment, art and fashion, writing and storytelling, and eating and drinking. Other cultural influences featured include an interactive 'rogues gallery' of troublemakers with Irish heritage, and worldwide festivals and celebrations of Irish culture.
