EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum, allows people to discover what it really means to be Irish through the stories of Irish emigrants who became scientists, politicians, poets, artists and even outlaws all over the world. But in a cluttered tourism market competing against much more established attractions with much deeper pockets EPIC needed to be brave in order to get noticed at all.
EPIC realised that many significant Irish women have been left out of our history books entirely despite their accomplishments. Daredevil aviators, groundbreaking computing engineers, activists leaders and pioneering surgeons, all overlooked entirely. So they partnered with RTE, The Irish National broadcaster, to create an exhibition and 6 part documentary called ‘Herstory’, highlighting the amazing lives of these epic women and the impact they made on the world. We needed to raise awareness of this collaboration with an extremely small budget.
Most of the statues in Ireland are, you guessed it, of men. So to put a spotlight on this imbalance we created a podium for the many important women in Irish history, with the absence of the actual statue speaking volumes. We placed this podium in the always busy O’Connell Street, which is full of statues of famous Irish men, to really drive our point home. We invited press and influencers and released the imagery to various publications to spark public conversation.
This simple but powerful idea generated earned media, raised awareness of these epic Irish women and drove footfall to the EPIC museum.
