If you have Irish heritage and have a chance to visit Dublin make sure you go to the Epic Irish Emigration Museum

There are many things to do in Dublin and we found out that you can probably do them all if you really want to even if you are only in Ireland for 5 days but you can also choose just to do a few and take your time and even go to Butlers for hot chocolate twice. The Epic Irish Emigration Museum is a place you might want to save a little more time than we did for it especially if you have Irish roots. My family was given tickets to the Epic Museum from Tourism Ireland and we really enjoyed our visit. Next time we’ll come back and research our Irish genealogy (you’ll find more about this at the end of this piece and I’ve filmed a little video here too)

There are more people of Irish descent outside of Ireland than living in Ireland

And my family is part of this group. I think my great-grandma was from Cork in Ireland but I need to confirm with my grandma. I accidentally gave my Scottish great-grandpa’s last name to the Irish Border Patrol when I eagerly told him we were visiting for the first time and yes, we were part Irish from Cork.

There is a place in the Epic Museum where you can actually register your name with your Irish last name to show that you’ve come back to visit Ireland. It was really cool to register here with my kids and show them that there were at least 100 more people with the same family name who had come and registered here too and like us, at least 20 of them had emigrated to the United States.

You will learn about many people of Irish descent that you probably didn’t know were Irish at the Epic Museum

I was most surprised to learn that Orla Kiely is Irish. If you think you haven’t heard about her you’ll probably recognize her designs immediately. They’re pretty iconic and for some reason I thought she was from Norway. There were also quite a few famous American names in this museum that we didn’t know were from Ireland too.

This whole museum is a really beautiful designed space and that is worth a visit in itself. Every room we went into felt thoughtfully created and you could choose to delve into all the information presented or just take things in at a surface level. We only allotted an hour to our visit and we could have stayed for a couple hours to take in all the exhibits and chat with the docents in the museum. We ended up chatting with someone for a little while and this was one of our favorite parts of our visit.

My kids (and I) also really liked the passport that we were given to stamp as we traveled through the museum. This would be really great for young kids as well. There were quite a few interactive exhibits here that would be entertaining for all ages. This feels like a museum that really put thought into its user experience and it’s easy to see why it is “Europe’s leading tourist attraction at the World Travel Awards” in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This would also be a perfect stop if you are on a multigenerational Ireland trip.

And the coolest thing? You can book personalized appointments with a genealogist to find more about your Irish roots

Even if you are at home and not in Ireland, you can book an online appointment with a genealogist. This is something I want to do in the New Year and it would be such a cool gift (if you are looking for a last-minute gift that doesn’t look last minute!) If you are at the Epic Museum you can add an in-person consultation from 30-90 minutes too.

Do you have family from Ireland? And is Dublin on your travel bucket list?

Terumi

Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys.  She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live.  She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)