[1][2] Project Arts Centre was founded by Jim FitzGerald and Colm O'Briain in 1967 after a three-week festival at the Gate Theatre in 1966.

[3] The Centre had several homes before it opened for business in a converted factory on East Essex Street in 1975,[1] after numerous issues regarding funding.

[4] This building was demolished in 1998 and a new purpose-built space containing two auditoriums, a gallery and a bar opened on the same site in 2000,[5] as part of the second phase of the regeneration of Temple Bar.

[6] The presence of the Centre, along with a number of other cultural institutions in Temple Bar, such as Irish Film Institute, the Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Black Church Print Studios, the Gallery of Photography, and Temple Bar Music Centre (now the Button Factory), inspired the regeneration of the area as a cultural quarter.

[10] In 2018, street artist Maser painted a mural in support of the Repeal the 8th "pro-choice" campaign, but the Centre was pressured by the Irish Government to paint over it.