The Gate Theatre and the Ambassador and Pillar Room venues are located at the southeastern corner of the square, where it meets O'Connell Street.

One of Dublin's most acclaimed restaurants, Chapter One, is located on the northern side of Parnell Square between the Hugh Lane Gallery and the Writers Museum.

On the south side of the square is Conway's bar (now closed), outside of which Patrick Pearse surrendered to the British Army after the 1916 Easter Rising.

A friend of Michael Collins and the writers W. B. Yeats and James Joyce, Gogarty was unwillingly immortalised as Buck Mulligan in the Ulysses.

Prior to 1916, it was used for drilling both by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and the Volunteers; on the eve of the outbreak of the Easter Rising Éamon de Valera assembled the 3rd Battalion here.

No 46 Parnell Square – Formerly the Headquarters of Conradh na Gaeilge, the Irish language league, this was the venue where Thomas MacDonagh assembled the 2nd Battalion the Sunday night on the eve of the 1916 Easter Rising.

In August 1917, the meetings that led to the National Executive of the Irish Republican Army being established were also here, with persons present including Éamon de Valera, Thomas Ashe, Cathal Brugha, and Michael Collins.

The street will be turned into a pedestrian space, the city's main library will move to the former Coláiste Mhuire buildings, a new auditorium will be built, and the gardens attached to the Rotunda Hospital will be opened up.