Children’s science and sports museum Explorium is back with what its operators are calling a bang.
Just one year after reopening following a long Covid-related hiatus, the interactive centre in Sandyford, south Co Dublin is back inside the city’s top 10 fee-charging visitor attractions, rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Guinness Storehouse and Dublin Zoo.
The latest Fáilte Ireland visitor attraction survey indicates the centre welcomed 271,502 visitors through its doors over the past 12 months. Mind you, that would have included visitors to kids parties, which are a popular feature of the offer there.
“Explorium was built to amaze, teach and inspire, and it’s clear we are meeting a real national need,” managing director Charlie Kelly said in response to the latest numbers.
The centre, which includes several augmented reality adventures, was forced to close at the start of the pandemic and didn’t reopen, for variety of reasons, financial and otherwise, until late 2023.
The owners had hoped the Government would back a plan to morph Explorium into the national children’s science museum but were left disappointed when a rival project (the National Children’s Science Centre) located on the campus of the National Concert Hall on Earlsfort Terrace got the green light.
Kelly noted recently that funding for Explorium and its relaunch was sourced privately, with no public investment.
The rival Earlsfort Terrace project dates back to 2007 and former taoiseach Bertie Ahern who championed the idea of national science exhibit along the lines of the London Science Museum.
It was initially shelved when the financial crisis hit in 2008 but has subsequently been revived by the original consortium chosen to operate the project, the Irish Children’s Museum Ltd, which includes senior counsel Michael Collins, Prof Luke O’Neill and Ali Hewson on its board.
John Conlon, the chairman of Office of Public Works (OPW) – which has been tasked with delivering the project – told the Public Accounts Committee last year that the cost of the project could be “in the region of €70 million”, while noting the OPW hasn’t finalised the costings.
Either way, the latter has yet to get off the ground while Explorium seems to be enjoying a better-than-expected restart.
