Work through all twenty themed galleries, from migration since 500 AD to the diaspora today

Find the galleries on criminal transportation and on Irish involvement in foreign conflicts

Trace one family name through the emigration records in the genealogy centre

Look at the vaults themselves, built as a bonded customs warehouse from 1820

EPIC opened in May 2016 in the vaults of the CHQ Building — a bonded customs warehouse begun in 1820 by John Rennie and completed by Thomas Telford — and tells the story of the Irish diaspora across twenty themed galleries, running from migration patterns since 500 AD through the Famine, transportation, missionary work and the effects of Irish involvement in other people's wars. It was voted Europe's Leading Tourist Attraction at the World Travel Awards three years running, in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

EPIC: The Museum of the People Who Left

Walk among Rowan Gillespie's seven bronzes and find the dog at the back of the group, as gaunt as the people it follows, all of them facing the river

Find out about the Perseverance, one of the first famine ships out of Dublin in 1846 — her captain was 74 and left an office job to sail her

Board the Jeanie Johnston — the original made sixteen crossings between 1848 and 1855 with some 2,500 emigrants and never lost a passenger, which was not the norm

From the Jeanie Johnston's deck, look back at the quay from roughly the height an emigrant would have seen it

On Custom House Quay beside the Liffey, seven bronze figures by sculptor Rowan Gillespie trudge toward the water — emaciated men, women, and a starving dog. Unveiled in 1997, they stand on the departure point of the Perseverance, one of the first famine ships to leave Dublin in 1846, captained by a 74-year-old man who quit his office job to make the crossing. All his passengers arrived in America safely. Moored a few steps away is the Jeanie Johnston, a replica of a famine-era ship that made 16 transatlantic crossings between 1847 and 1855 without losing a single passenger.

The Famine Memorial and the Jeanie Johnston

In Merrion Square Park, look closely at the Wilde statue — he reclines on a Wicklow quartz boulder, torso of green nephrite jade and pink thulite, legs of Norwegian blue pearl granite, shoes of black Indian charnockite

Walk to 21 Westland Row — a ten-minute walk from Merrion Square — where a plaque marks the house where Wilde was actually born on 16 October 1854; the building is now part of Trinity College Dublin's Oscar Wilde Centre

At Marsh's Library on St Patrick's Close, look into the three wire reading cages, in use since the 1770s to stop readers walking off with the books

Go inside St Patrick's Cathedral and find Swift's grave slab and the Latin epitaph he wrote for himself — W. B. Yeats put it into English and called it the greatest epitaph in history

Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854 and grew up at 1 Merrion Square — the square's park now holds his reclining statue, built out of coloured stones from three continents. Two streets away, Marsh's Library has stood since 1707 as Ireland's oldest public library, with three wire reading cages in use since the 1770s to stop readers pocketing the books; Jonathan Swift, Dean of St Patrick's next door, was a reader here in its early years.

Oscar Wilde, Marsh's Library and Dublin's Literary Monuments

In the Book of Kells exhibition, find the page on show — at least three monks' hands have been identified in the manuscript, and it took the skins of about 185 calves

Stand at the end of the 65-metre Long Room under its barrel vault, its shelves emptied for the Old Library Redevelopment Project apart from the first four bays

Find the Brian Boru Harp, made around 1400 and the model for the harp on Irish coins, passports and the presidential seal

Find Jonathan Swift among the marble busts along the Long Room — he graduated from here in 1686 by special grace, having failed to meet the standard

The Long Room at Trinity College Dublin is 65 metres long under its barrel vault, lined with marble busts and, until recently, 200,000 of the library's oldest books — they have been taken down for the Old Library Redevelopment Project, apart from the first four bays. The Book of Kells, made by Irish monks around 800, is shown open at a two-page spread in the Old Library, and the Brian Boru Harp, made around 1400 and the model for the harp on Irish coins and the presidential seal, is on display there too.

The Long Room: Trinity's Living Library

Start at the Martello Tower in Sandycove, where Ulysses opens with Stephen Dedalus and Buck Mulligan — now the James Joyce Museum, holding his guitar, cigar case and death mask

At Sweny's Pharmacy on Lincoln Place, buy a bar of the lemon soap Bloom walks out with in Lotus Eaters — it is a volunteer bookshop now, and they read Ulysses aloud in it

At Davy Byrne's on Duke Street, order Bloom's lunch from Lestrygonians — a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy, still on the menu

At Glasnevin, find the O'Connell Tower inside the Finglas Road gate, where Bloom attends Paddy Dignam's funeral in Hades — Collins, de Valera and Joyce's own father are buried here

Ulysses follows Leopold Bloom through Dublin on 16 June 1904 across 18 episodes. The physical route — from the Martello Tower in Sandycove to the National Library, Davy Byrne's pub, Sweny's Pharmacy and Glasnevin Cemetery — can be walked in a full day. Most of the buildings Bloom passes still stand — though not 7 Eccles Street, his own house, which was demolished; its front door is on show at the James Joyce Centre.

Joyce's Dublin: The Bloomsday Walk

Order a pint at Mulligan's on Poolbeg Street, there since 1854, mentioned in James Joyce's Counterparts

Tour Rascals Brewing Company in Inchicore, an independent craft brewery founded in 2014, minutes from Kilmainham Gaol

Book a table at Chapter One on Parnell Square, a two-Michelin-star restaurant helmed by chef Mickael Viljanen

Pick up ingredients at George's Street Arcade to cook your own version back at the van

Dublin's food runs from one extreme to the other inside a couple of square miles. Mulligan's has been on Poolbeg Street since 1854, on a licence going back to 1782 and Joyce put it into Counterparts; you go there for the stout, not for innovation. Chapter One on Parnell Square holds two Michelin stars under Mickael Viljanen and is as serious as Irish cooking gets. Rascals in Inchicore is the third thing — an independent brewery founded in 2014, minutes from Kilmainham Gaol. And the cheapest way to eat well is to buy at George's Street Arcade and cook it at the van.

Mulligan's to Chapter One: Dublin's Old and New Kitchens

At Clonycavan Man, look at the hair — held up with a gel of plant oil and pine resin from Spain or southern France, which is Iron Age trade you can see

At Old Croghan Man, note what is missing — arms and torso only, and hands with no sign of manual work on a man who ate wheat and buttermilk

Find the other bodies in the same gallery, and read how each was placed in the bog on a boundary between kingdoms

Find the Ralaghan Idol, the Iron Age carved wooden figure from County Cavan, shown alongside the bodies

Find the Tara Brooch, the Ardagh Chalice and the Cross of Cong in the Treasury, and the Bronze Age goldwork in Ór — Ireland's Gold

The National Museum of Ireland on Kildare Street holds the most significant collection of Iron Age bog bodies in the world. Clonycavan Man and Old Croghan Man, both found in 2003, are the most intact. Clonycavan Man — found in Meath — was using a hair gel made from plant oil and pine resin imported from Spain or France, evidence of Iron Age international trade. Both men were killed in elaborate ritual sequences that archaeologists interpret as failed kingship sacrifices.

Kingship and Sacrifice: Ireland's Bog Bodies

Eat in The Yeats Room at Ballymaloe House, where the menu changes with what came in that day

Walk the farm and gardens that supply the kitchen

Book a course or a demonstration at the Ballymaloe Cookery School at Shanagarry

Work out how a farmhouse dining room in east Cork ended up reshaping Irish cooking

The Allens bought Ballymaloe House and its farm in 1947, and in 1964 Myrtle Allen opened a restaurant in her own dining room — The Yeats Room, named for the Jack Yeats paintings hanging in it — cooking what the farm and the sea in front of it produced that day, on a menu that changed every evening. That was heresy at the time and is now orthodoxy everywhere. The cookery school her daughter-in-law Darina Allen went on to run has trained a large share of the chefs working in Ireland today. The whole modern Irish food movement traces back to this one house.

Ballymaloe: Where Modern Irish Cooking Started

Climb the Hill of Slane and pick out the Hill of Tara 16km to the south

Walk the ruins of the 16th-century friary and college on the summit

Climb the friary tower for the view over the Boyne valley

Work out why a story about a fire needed these two hills to be inter-visible

Muirchú, writing a heavily mythologised Life of Patrick in the seventh century, says that Patrick lit a Paschal fire on this hilltop in 433, in direct defiance of the High King Lóegaire, who had forbidden any fire while the festival fire burned on Tara. Historians think Muirchú moved a fire lit somewhere else to Slane for the sake of the story — and the reason the story works at all is that you can see Tara from here, sixteen kilometres away. The hilltop now carries a ruined 16th-century friary and college.