EPIC Experience

The Chq Building, Custom House Quay, North Dock, Dublin 1, Ireland

In between a hectic work schedule, I found a spot where I could get 1 week of travel in, to de-stress. I figured, if I could line up a bunch of things to do, in a short amount of time, prior to going on the trip, that I could hit the ground running, wherever I went, to see the most things in a short period of time. Looking at the world map, I figured I’d leave the USA for this trip, but didn’t want to do over 8 hours for any trip. I wanted to hit the group, throw my luggage in my hotel room, and immediately get out to an event or two, quickly. I ultimately decided to go to Ireland and then figured that since the first stop of this trip would be Dublin, I got on the Googles and started to search for events happening there, for the weekend I was there. That is because I as got be headed to a city in Ireland and not immediately do what most people do, which is to go through the southern rim of Ireland, which mainly done to see nature beauty, like the Cliffs of Moher. The people I was with wanted to see only those things and didn’t really care to go into the streets of the cities, other than to drink beer, as most were not impressed with the food in Ireland because they can get that at home or make it themselves, they claimed. So, nobody wanted to do anything in Dublin since we were not going to be there long and they were unimpressed by Dublin. These folks are from major cities, so I can sort of see why they were not that impressed, but just because it’s another city, that doesn’t mean it operates like your city that you hate so much. I went to Ireland to absorb as much of the culture in as possible, because I knew it was kind of like the black sheep of Europe, given that it’s been so resistant to British rule so much that a part of it was carved out and called Northern Ireland, which is under British rule. Most people don’t know that Northern Ireland is not Ireland, and hasn’t been since violent conflicts dating back to 1921. I thought, hell, if nobody not from UK knows this, then clearly there is a little story to dig into there. This is really interesting because a lot of people just clump European descendants of America together at one big group, but they all have different lineages and different countries of origin, most with their own cultures and habits. Ireland is an interesting study because of how the Irish Americans grappled with suddenly becoming “White,” in America, after being treated like dogs by the ruling Americans, who were mainly British in origin. The Irish hated them and vice versa, but when they got to be white themselves, to join the descendants of British, something completely got lost in translation in America, something that broke them from Irish identity from Ireland, and a lot of that was on display where I ultimately ended up going to when I finally settled in Dublin. You can read about some of these questions about what it means in to be Irish in Noel Ignatiev’s masterpiece “How the Irish became White,” in 1995. That book even had pro-Black people praising it for the telling of the mental jousting with Irish identity and how Irish Americans immediately adopted some biased way after obtaining their white-ship. This was especially interesting to look at Irish Americans in the lens of wanting to be ruling class White people who can punch down on minorities when back in Ireland, The Troubles were happening where Irish and Northern Irish (British Loyalists) were killing each other left and right for 30 years, specifically for what Irish people felt was poor treatment of Irish people (Catholics living in Northern Ireland). That book came out in 1995 and the Troubles were happening from 1968 – 1998! That’s 30 years of killing each other as the backdrop of Ireland, wanting to not be oppressed and intruded upon by British rule, and yet, you had what Ignatiev was presenting in How the Irish became White, which completely baffled how Irish Americans behaved after getting “power” from being White. So, of course, I wanted to get a look into that complete split of Irish mentality, and I was completely right in my suspicion that Irish people in Ireland are about resistance to power rule without control, which is why it made complete sense to me that the would oppose Israel and side with Palestinians in the recent war of Israel and Hamas. I grew up around some really racist and hateful Irish Americans, and they were nothing like Ireland was putting forward about who they were, in media and in a museums, which brought me to a place I found when I was looking for things to do in Dublin. I found a really interesting spot to do interactive learning about the Irish experience around the world and wondered if my buddies wanted in on it. I sent a message to the people met traveling and they didn’t want to go, and sent a message to some people I was linking up with in Ireland (who live there), who told me to go do all that touristy stuff but the museum that I found they promised would really be worth it to learn Irish identity and make some sense of things I knew. I head out to do my touristy thing, I went to see a bunch of landmarks, and after checking out the venue that I had lined up, I check on Google maps and saw that their estimation was that there would be low traffic in this interactive museum, so I would be rushed when looking at the exhibit, and sure enough it was almost empty to start. The place I hit up, and you must also hit up too, it’s called “EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum.”

The EPIC is really something amazing, it’s a very fun way to learn a lot of about Irish history anywhere Irish people may have migrated to. Ireland has always suffered from emigration, that is people leaving Ireland for other places, so the EPIC traces some of the history of the emigration out of Ireland and to where Irish people landed after they left, some of their triumphs where they landed, and some of their conflicts and failures, as well. You can see a consistent theme being told though, that Ireland is about support of the underdog and they want that to be part of their identity. So, if you’re ever in Dublin, and you want to check out the coolest thing around while also getting a very good history lesson, then you MUST go to EPIC because you will be surprised how much you learned in such a short period of time. I even thought to write this, while I wait for my plane, because I still have that knowledge fresh on my brain from the start of the trip, 2 weeks ago. How did I find this thing without doing any serious research on it other than “what is a touristy thing to do?” Google search? Sometimes, when Mark Zuckerberg, and whoever runs Google, scour your personal email and your web cookies, or use your IP address to serve you up personalized ads, aside from the adverts to sell me pills to make my boner longer (I don’t need this), they can hit the mark 1 out of 10 times on something you actually want. After I was doing some research and reading up on issues and things in Ireland, and even that part about why they made such a bold statement about Israel, it dawned on me that the earlier trip I did, where I learned about Irish history, and The Troubles, made all the sense in the world, because that’s considered British imposing and occupation of Irish land, taking away part of Ireland to make Northern Ireland, and that is why Irish people liken themselves to Palestinians having their land taken away by Israel* (mind you that’s what they think, that’s not necessarily MY view, it’s what Irish are saying). They support the underdog and don’t like occupation. People are thinking the Troubles is going to pop off again, soon, because it’s still on the mind of many people. I was searching for some meaningful spots to hit in Dublin, to actually learn about Ireland itself (not Northern Ireland at this time, which his not Ireland). All that searching put me on the radar for the AI bots and spying so my adverts started to show me pictures and marketing for the EPIC museum. There were so many lights and displays, and when I looked it up, it didn’t make sense that it was even a museum with history in it, but surely it was. It was a museum with a spin, because it was like 100 percent interactive, but I thought that meant “kiddie,” but nope, it was just a unique way to get tourists to be interested in learning about the people of the country they were visiting- you know, like what you should be doing when you do travel to some foreign country but idiot people don’t do, instead they want to flex and pretend to be someone they’re not in another country since people don’t know them. EPIC is there for the person who really wishes to get familiar with Irish culture and who were curious about their people, and this I felt was a very good way to get people interested. The adverts convinced me and I didn’t even bother to go do further research, I just went to go immerse myself in knowledge. So, I bookmarked it on Google Maps and set a reminder to get tickets, after I got a few drinks in me, of course- no way I was coming to the land of Guinness and I wasn’t going to be full of Guinness- that’s equally important as knowledge is when your feet first touch the shores of Ireland. I pretty much roll like this to anything, I don’t consider photo ops, I just go and immerse myself in the experience and see how I feel about the experience realtime, no overthinking it. The thing is, when I was checking out the touristy things to do blogs, I could see why it wasn’t on the lists of top places to go when I went to young people’s blogs, because it is labeled as a museum and the kids only care to go to Dublin to party all night, so that’s not their thing. I had to check out the old people’s blogs to learn of things like EPIC, and later the Titanic museum when I made my way to Belfast. These are considered old people’s things to do, but if you’re really trying to learn about the culture of a place you go to, then EPIC is right up your alley, and it’s cheap too – $20 USD! You will know, if you go to the Titanic museum, they’ll have a little bit of that underdog story there too, because a lot of the beef with The Troubles, that popped off at that shipping yard there and the beef between Protestants and Catholics was huge as the backdrop in the making of the Titanic, decades before, due to the laborers who built that titanic and job opportunities. It spawned urban legends about this hatred for Catholics since this time. Irish people made sure to tell that story there too, in that museum! If you’re not checking for history, and the messaging, you’d completely miss that. After sharing some of that knowledge with some of the people who went to Ireland with me, they didn’t want to go and didn’t care about any of that, despite me telling them EPIC won the “Europe’s Leading Tourist Attraction” award 2019-2021 – according to the sticker on the 1,000,000 adverts I was now starting to see everywhere I browsed. They just wanted to go out to drink all night instead of seeing the cultural prizes of Dublin, they felt that to get the experience of Ireland, you have to go play to the stereotypes of drinking all day only- so they went right to the pubs. I guess the pubs are a national treasure in Ireland, but there was PLENTY of time to do this, and not enough time to hit up places like EPIC. I ended up going by myself since it looked like there was low turn out and I’d have less people coughing in my face.

I get to the place, it seemed like there was nobody on the lines, just like Google said there wouldn’t be. I looked inside of the building, through the windows from the sides, and I saw the stores inside of the building closed down, “COOL,” I thought, less people, and less sick people coughing all over the place, like I was seeing all in the streets and hotels and airport. People in Europe will cough right in your face and not cover their mouths, and nobody wears masks anymore since Covid is officially defeated- although clearly it’s not. I didn’t see anyone so I didn’t mask up, and went to see where to get some tickets. Must be save to go in without a mask since nobody would be there, right? I mean, there wasn’t even anyone at the ticketing booth, so I cued up on line and waited for them to come back, made a quick call to keep the boys and informed that I wouldn’t be there long since there was nobody and it was empty with nobody on line (btw – you must go to The Church Café, Late Bar & Restaurant if out there, trust me this place was fire!), so I’d meet them earlier than I said. They told me that it is impossible that nobody is there it’s one of the hottest attractions in Dublin, and I was trying to tell them that there was nobody around, the place was a ghost town, and as I was doing this, someone tapped my shoulder and told me that me to proceed to the ticketing booth because they’re calling me to buy a ticket. When I turned around to see who the hell was interrupting me on my important call, I turned my back, and then suddenly there was a big damn line wrapping around the lanes inside and out into that mall-like area. That was maybe less than 10 minutes I was on the phone, not paying attention, and that place got packed out of nowhere. Yeah, I could officially confirm that EPIC is one of the best events out there and it’s highly popular. Apparently, that Google estimation of how full it was doesn’t work if everyone has iPhones? 🤣 And right on cue, the person who tapped my shoulder was a coughing European. That was wild to see EPIC pack up like that, so I just masked up to deal with the many people coughing without covering their mouths, or noses while sneezing, and all. 🤧😒 I was listening to the accents and there were a lot of Irish people also going to EPIC, and that’s for sure how you know it’s a good thing if you have the country people taking in a cultural event of their people. I was fearing it would be a kids exhibit but most of those people on line were adults so I knew it was going to a good experience at EPIC. I got the ticket and proceeded to the EPIC displays and the first thing I saw was as I was entering, there was a display reading “departures,” and I couldn’t figure out what in the world that was referring to. The guy who was in behind me, when I was in line, told me that Ireland has always had a big problem with trying to get people to come back to Ireland, like they had a huge brain train when people emigrated (left the country) to other countries. EPIC was portraying a section about the mass emigration out of Ireland in that display, and he pointed to the desk that read “emigration.” It was crazy how many people deserted Ireland and Ireland today is still hurting from the lack of population there. Some things have picked up now that big tech has set up there, but nothing compared to the number of Irish people who emigrated from Ireland. This is what sets the stage for the event and that is why it is set up where it is, and there was constant emigration is what EPIC is showing you on the writings, which has been more than a century of it out of Ireland. There were so many “easter eggs” like this that I realized I had to start reading more of the material on the displays because they were dropping gems out there.

Wild, right, as soon as you walk in, you see this display reading “Departures” and “Emigration” and some artwork that was made up like piles of luggage, as if to suggest that people packed their bags and deserted Ireland, not that it was tourism or anything. The people left and never came back, and that’s when it dawned on me, “ooooh, EPIC is dedicated to the Irish Diaspora.” When you realize this, it will help you understand the plot of the whole museum, which seems like a bunch of loosely woven together things but it’s all telling a comprehensive story, in the end. You think about why people have left countries, you’re thinking that they leave to get a better life in other places, but you’d have to think back to the many, constant setbacks that Ireland has faces, as a country, especially as it relates to their history alongside the British, who didn’t make for a good time with many Irish people, historically. The country of Ireland has seen many bad conflicts with Britain and it’s UK for centuries, and many know of the potato famine, but people just thik that it’s a simple issue that people didn’t know how to farm anything but potatoes, which is how it is taught in schools in USA, but this is the revisionist history that is told by people who don’t want the British to come under fire if you tell the full truth about the occupation and dominance of Irish people, so that British people could have their high end lifestyles. Irish people were sick of this and they just decided to leave by the boatload, which is quite literal, they were loading up on those huge ocean liners, many of which were docking out of southern Ireland, bound for the new world. EPIC wonderfully displays timelines of the Irish Diaspora, when people felt they would not survive if they stayed in Ireland thus were forced to leave Ireland for other locations, at key moments in history, which is why EPIC highlight “emigration” as a key problem to Irish existence. Life is surely better now, so they want immigration back to Ireland, but people have already gone and turned into other people, wherever they landed, like the Irish I grew up around who were from Boston. They can’t go to Ireland, they’ve nothing in common with anyone in Ireland, and surely don’t have the same mindset. It’s funny because there was a display I saw, later in the museum, featuring the former US President, Obama, and an American nearby was going off, in a negative way, about Irish people featuring Obama in EPIC and how they shouldn’t claim him. He didn’t see me, and I stayed out of the vision to let him continue to go on his diatribe. He surely doesn’t get down with the kind of “underdog” mentality that EPIC is putting out there, and he is Americanized, so someone like this would never fit into Irish society today. I can’t see someone like this migrating back to Ireland, so yes, immigration is going to be a problem for a while, which mean that Ireland would need to open its borders to non-Irish people to fill the void. I didn’t see anything in EPIC addressing all the people moving back to Ireland for Irish pride. EPIC is about the history of Irish movement out of Ireland, but globally, and more importantly, in some places, it documented the hatred and vitriol that Irish people faced in many of the places they moved to, when trying to escape what Ireland had become after the British interfered. Many of the display in EPIC centered around the pure hatred that Irish people faced in the USA, too, which was of special interest to me, considering that I am one of the people who read “How the Irish became White” and it served as a huge backdrop for most of what I saw in the EPIC. So, when we just throw out there, things that jumble all of a group of people into a color, we in America tend to forget the origins of the people who are the descendants of Europeans who stole the land of America from the original inhabitants and brought slaves over to enrich themselves. There were many Europeans involved in that, mainly British people, in the what later became the USA, but during the foundation of the USA, Irish people certainly were in the USA, not getting special treatment for being similar to British and Scottish descendants either, they were being treated as subhuman, almost seen like Black people were- although not even close in comparison. So, when they came to the USA, Irish people wanted to dominate someone, and that was Blacks. That history of being the underdog and being looked down upon by British, that magically disappeared when the Irish landed in USA, despite all the things that you see in EPIC, showcasing how they were hated by “Americans” for most of their early years after emigration to the USA. EPIC mentioned that Irish people faced heavy “racism,” and I was like, ‘from what RACE? Where did they face racism? In Africa? China?’ but no, EPIC was talking about from all the places that Irish people migrated to that were countries dominated by other European descendants, which isn’t racism since they’re the same race, NOW, but as you get from “How the Irish became White” you can see they were not considered White originally. The point EPIC was trying to make was that was that Irish immigrants faces tremendous bigotry everywhere they went, hell, they mind as well have been Black at that point. If you want to see this for yourself, find that EPIC display called “REVOLUTIONARY ROUTES: IRELAND & THE BLACK ATLANTIC,” it will show you the many places they left to go to after running away from mess made by Brits. It was refreshing to understand this different perspective that I was not exactly familiar with, coming from the real Irish accounts of people with strong ties and history in Ireland, rather than hearing second hand tales from people who don’t know their own history, like some of my friends and people I came up with. You can see some of this the Xenophobia that EPIC hints at, in movies like Gangs of New York, which showed how before you had Black gangs you see today, you had all these Irish, Jewish, Italian gangs and corrupt people, none of whom were considered White at that time either, thus were and “other” then. All of whom had signifcantly change their own attitudes, similarly to the Irish, after being able to become White in America. Some groups, are very mad that they were not allowed to become White, and exact revenge on Black people because European descendants wouldn’t let them be considered White when they defined who was White in 1922, although no European was considered White then. Even as late as 60s and 70s, America was twisting race definitions again. This is why Jewish people changed their names to not sound Jewish, that supremacy was taking its toll on immigrants, who wished to be White so they could avoid the heat and to gain power to punch down, like this group waiting now to be made white. That’s why you see them sueing NYC because NYC has programs to advance people who are poor (regardless of race) and this group wants to make sure Black and Latinos who are poor, do not get a good education. They think, being racist and racially biases is being “White,” which is what a lot of people who have emigrated to the USA do, including Blacks from all over the world.

EPIC does a really good job of making artistic displays of out objects and scenery that are synonymous with the Irish experience, for example, since the late 1800s, Irish people had to leave Ireland for multiple important issues such as Potato Famine; however, you will learn that Irish people (“Scots-Irish”) were in the USA in the 1700s, in the Carolinas, Virginia and Pennsylvania, staying mostly in the east coast of the USA and that migration predated the Famine. I thought the Irish came only in the 1850 with the other Settlers but turns out they were in the USA since the start of the 18^th century. The most notable point of emigration was definitely during the Famine when 2.5 million people left from Queenstown (Cobh today) to come to the USA, and by 1890, flooded the rest of the east of the USA in places like New York and Boston. When people teach Irish history, in classes I took in the USA, they start with the potato famine, and don’t talk about prior to this period. I knew of people like Thomas D’Arcy McGee, aka D’Arcy McGee, who was from the Young Irish political group to overthrow British rule of Ireland, in his early days, which you’ll learn about in EPIC. He had a lot of heat coming his way, defending his people and Catholics, part of the problem with the emigration is that the Brits would come for you if you physically defended yourself from British rule, and that heat came to D’Arcy McGee and he was also forced the emigrate from Ireland, suddenly. He had to escape Ireland and came to the USA to escape Brits since he figured that Americans were not under the control of British anymore. Then, after being in the USA, he suddenly realized those European descendants in the USA were too controlling and annoying. He got to a point where he actually hated everything about America and what it stood for, WORSE than British rule according to some sources, and did a 180 degree turn on looking for a great live as an Irish immigrant in American, which he constantly wrote about his displeasure in literary works he created. He was like a rapper making diss tracks about the European Settlers too, and even had a rhyme book he published. That rapper mentality and that gained him a lot of followers. He was a key person in defense against anti-Irish Catholic sentiment in the USA, before Irish could be considered White and obtained privilege, and where he was opposed to British rule over Ireland, he ditched the USA to live in Montreal, Canada, thinking he could escape anything related to Americans. The British controlled Canada and he would rather be THERE that to be in American facing the incredible blacklash just for being Irish in America, and these issues are highlighted in the works seen in EPIC. How bad could it be that you want to go sit up with British people, the same people who chased him out of Ireland in the first place, just so he didn’t have to be with bigotted, anti-Irish Americans! Then, when he got to Canada, clearly, he didn’t realize that the Protestants were going strong in Canada due to British rule, and they clearly hated Catholics as much as Americans, outright, so he walked right into the fire! So this is what Irish had to deal with, hate as a people just for existing and hate from a religious standpoint by British/Protestants! What happened to McGee perfectly highlighted the Irish plight, being hated all in the West at any angle they turned, back then. So much so that when he ran for office, what I learned in EPIC was that he got shot in his once after running for office, by an assassin, but what I didn’t know prior, was that the reason he got shot was due to his support of British rule over Canada, which confused many Catholics- he lost a lot of support from Catholics for his support of the British rule over Canada. 😳 That’s what I learned in EPIC, that what I knew prior was completely wrong, that he got shot for siding with the British after completely being against them! Apparently, he hated Americans so much that he wanted to ensure they did not expand their ways into Canada, so he went to side with British. He also obtained a fair bit of Privilege in his endeavors in Canada, and got a power he had never had prior. He was the underdog and the enemy all his life, until he switched sides in Canada and sided with the oppressor, and his people were watching that switch up and how he turned into a turncoat- so they popped him. That was a foreshadowing though, because he quickly turned around and sided with the oppressors like it was overnight, as soon as he got that 1 touch of privilege of the ruling class, and that cemented his legacy as someone who would turn on the oppressed as soon as they got any kind of power, and that his whole backstory is nullified by him switching up on his people like that. It foreshadows what would be to come, a half a century later, and all that support for the underdog act was gone from everyone the minute they got just a tiny taste of power, and made it to be part of the ruling class when they got moved to “White” on their census. That’s why it was hard to try to connect the American history I learned about Irish American history vs Irish history because it was like completely opposite people. Today, a good chunk of Neo Nazis are Irish Americans, and this is not a point lost of the Irish from Ireland, because they’re looking at those Irish Americans sideways for joining the Neo Nazis, like the one in New England called “NSC-131,” and they wrote this article on it because nobody else will call this nonsense out- as the article also highlights. Remember I told you about that racism experience in Boston with Irish Americans, well these are the offspring of such folks, and yes, they have been protesting outside of the big Holocaust museum there in Boston and nobody did a damn thing about it. People in Ireland can’t understand this and have no explanation, I’ll tell you, privilege changes a person. You can read a lot of the issues that South Boston, for instance, contributed to the racial injustices I spoke about, from the author of Mystic River, as he describes the racism that was the identity in Boston, from where he group in in Southy. When people say the ‘Boston is Racist,’ you don’t have a shortage of documented proof and who was doing it.

There are some really cool interactive displays that talk about the history of Irish in the liquor business, musical contributions, sport figures, notorious Irish characters everyone has heard of somehow, even in folk lore and movies, information about discrimination towards the Irish in hiring practices, and even had a display highlighting President Obama. Apparently there, they claim Obama big time as an Irishman- they don’t in a place like Boston, but they do in Ireland. Speaking of that, they will make sure you know that other people you didn’t know were Irish, were Irish. There is a museum in Mexico City that I went to before, it is called “Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo” in San Angel area of Mexico City, and it’s the former home of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. That building artistic building was created by famous artist Juan O’Gorman, technically it’s two buildings together one house built for his father and the other for the other famous artists. You can assume by the last name, that the there may be some Irish person involved in his life to get that, and you’d be right. I didn’t know Juan O’Gorman was an Irishman. Juan was born in Mexico, and that much I knew to be true, but I didn’t get the connection to being Irish because I thought both parents were also born in Mexico. Turns out, his FATHER emigrated from Ireland and went to Mexico to make a life for himself, and got himself a job at the mines. This was the early 1900s. This is why there was a display on Juan in EPIC, his connection to Irish emigration via his father who left Ireland for a better life. This is why EPIC is an amazing place to visit because they make connections to all kinds of people and their history. They even covered the areas that Irish people moved into, in the cities of America, and you can make the connection between these areas and some of the events you saw in Gangs of New York, which highlighted the life of Irish people in the ghettos of New York City, and the gangs that formed there. New York, Philly and Boston had a lot of immigrants from Ireland come through and many were in the underworld doing illegal activities, and they were allowed to join the police, to police their own and oppress their own, initiatively, before they were made White officially by the US government. Prior to all that though, they were depicted as apes in American cartoons, called “wild beasts” even, and you’d be led to think that only Blacks were called primates, but you’re wrong, that was something Americans put in Irish immigrants. When you see old school cartoons in 1800s and they have a figure who doesn’t look like all other white people in the cartoon, but has an ape face instead, that’s an Irish person and how they were depicted. Here is an example I saw in the Jim Crow display I want to once, and that guy on the left, stepping on the Black man, that’s an Irish American, and it perfectly highlighted the sudden change in mentality as he got his privilege! That’s why Irish are still cops today by and large, in USA today, it’s heritage and identity, it helped change the image of them in America to a “positive” stereotype, same with firefighters. This is why a lot of people used to feel that Irish who were cops were traitors to their people, because the cops used to harass them on levels like they do Black people. So, to see what I saw in EPIC, about the plight of Irish who fled from oppression and hatred of Brits, to ending up with power and that resulted in the racist power structure that created a place like Boston, historically, it’s a slap in the face to Ireland, according to people I know in Ireland. EPIC showed, all kinds of good, controversial and bad Irish figured in history. They really didn’t hold back on what types of figures were in this place, on display, they have Irish figures from all walks of life there. You will find that your curiosity will be piqued with each display you go to because each is going to make you curl your eyebrow in amazement. I had to go Google things as I was reading them on the display panels, to check the validities and all that data was true, according to the Internet, as I found the information on multiple sites. After having a few conversations with Irish natives, I shared some of the challenges I shared here in America, and they knew about a lot of the hypocritical hate that Americans had toward Blacks, for instance, and they say that Ireland hates that folks in the USA are like that, but note that they’re not from the soil, so don’t associate them with the people in Boston. This why you have the nods to them promoting the display like they have there of Obama, the one I got to where the American was mouthing off about Obama and hating on the nod that the Irish gave to Obama. You don’t find European/European descendants claiming mixed people like that, that’s rare, but they claim he represents Ireland. You wouldn’t hear any Americans do that! Seriously, Irish people claim Obama as much as a Black person, and they even wrote a song about it called “There’s No One as Irish as Barack O’Bama.” 🤣 That became a wave on the Internet too, there is a lot written about this. Where is that Boston, Massachusetts love for him? They hated him. 🤔 That was a really good museum and you have to go out to EPIC if you ever make it out to Dublin. I was running so late that the folks had to call me to tell me to hurry up and get to the eating place, because I lost track of time and spent more than 2 hours in EPIC! One would never know the history of the Irish by what you learn from American history, and I can see why people in American have re-written and buried the history of how the Irish were treated, historically in the USA, because that would make people seriously question most Americans and their history. I have Irish friends who don’t want to know anything about Ireland, because they don’t want to know about that supporting underdog type mentality and learning about how wrong it is to look down on the oppressed. The same people don’t like hearing the history of Irish Americans because they don’t like that time that Irish were inferior people in the USA. The EPIC is an eye opener and it will challenge you to go do your own research, some of which I shared here today. EPIC is going to confuse the hell out of Americans, it’s just not going to make sense, like when I had a discussion with a Black woman who was there with her kids, and she just said “wow, you’d never know THIS was the history and mentality originally” and she didn’t have to say more, I got exactly what I she was talking about, and she is from Chicago- the Boston backup! The way EPIC is set up, the interactive panels and interesting ways they deliver the information to you, will spend over 1 hour there, easily – just bring some hand sanitizer, people in Europe like to dig in their noses and then touch panels or cough on panels and in your face.

As always, the finished products can be found on the main site of www.drunkphotography.com.