Friday 9th May 

By James Tobin, Patrick Suarez and Evan Barnes

Jeanie Johnston 

Epic museum

Walking tour: Statues and GPO

EPIC Museum: The EPIC museum is a twenty room immersive experience that teaches you all about the history of emigration from Ireland.

The tour includes a complementary fake passport to stamp at the end of each room.

Each room has a different theme or part of emigration from Ireland to America or Canada and goes into great detail about their respective topic.

Some of the topics include art, Irish games like GAA, an immersive restaurant and Irish traditions.

Some rooms go as far as having old furniture from that time, the restaurant even had an old working till from that time period.

The end of the experience was very nice with there being a five minute movie in the last room showing how different emigration is now compared to during the famine.

Outside there was a gift shop for anyone who wanted to buy things like keychains or journals to bring home with them.

Jeanie Johnston:

The Jeanie Johnston is a famous Irish ship that holds significant historical value to Ireland.

On the tour we got to walk around for a bit and look at things ourselves.

We were told about the crew, the onboard doctor and the captain and how a man named Nicholas had 19 different names. They were all the crew members' names, the captain's name and the onboard doctor's name. In total his name turned out as Nicholas, Richard, James, Thomas, William, John, Gabriel, Carls, Michael, John, Alexander, Trabaret, Archibald, Cornelius, Hugh, Arthur, Edward, Johnston Reilly. We learned 

Walking tour of O’ Connelly street: The Statues and The GPO:

Next we headed for a walking tour of O’Connell Street in Dublin with Mr. Munnelly as our guide. First we started at Liberty Hall, where the 1916 Proclamation was printed on the night before the rising. Opposite this,  we then learned about James Connolly while looking at his statue. 

We walked up the quays towards O'Connell street.

 We started at the top of the street near the Spire, which is nearly 120 metres tall and can be seen from all around the city, built to mark the new millennium. It replaced the famous Nelson’s pillar that the IRA blew up in 1966!!

Next, we walked down to the GPO (General Post Office), one of the most famous buildings in Irish history. We learned how it became the headquarters of the leaders during the 1916 Easter Rising. The bullet holes are still visible in the columns, which made history feel very real to us. Inside, we visited the GPO Witness History Museum, where we saw videos and displays about the Rising.

As we continued down the street, we stopped to look at some of the statues. We saw the statue of Daniel O’Connell, the “Liberator,” and noticed the angel figures and bullet marks on the base. We also passed statues of James Larkin and Jim Larkin, who both fought for workers' rights.

Then we were allowed to get some lunch and explore the area ourselves. Most of us went to Supermacs and McDonalds. Before we left we visited the surrender site of the 1916 rebels on Moore street. Then we got the luas back to Rialto, Drimnagh, Bluebell and Tallaght !

It was a great day out, and we learned loads about Ireland’s past while walking through the heart of the city. Thanks to Mr. Munnelly and Ryan Kelly for bringing us.