Named after the gay rights reformer, Dr Magnus Hirschfeld, the centre opened on St Patrick's Day (17 March) 1979 and was the first venue of its kind in Ireland.

It included a café, a small cinema and a disco called ‘Flikkers’, and was credited with the revitalisation of the Temple Bar area as it became the hub for the gay community in the city.

[citation needed] Fownes Street receives a lengthy description in James Joyce's Ulysses (1922, set in 1904).

In Fownes's street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the glare.

Where the foreleg of King Billy's horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband back from under the hoofs of the outriders.