Arthurs Quay Shopping Centre takes its name from the Arthur family, prominent medieval merchants who had settled in Limerick by the 13th century.
The Arthurs had built Georgian townhouses on this site in the 18th century. After the establishment of Pery Square, Arthur’s Quay became a less desirable address and fell into disrepair; it later became a tenement block. In the 1950s the houses were in such a bad state that they were demolished, making way for Arthur’s Quay Shopping Centre to be built on the site some 30 years later.
This site was selected as a venue for the 28th edition of EVA, curated by Zdenka Badovinac (b. 1958, Slovenia) and titled Imagine Limerick.
This was one of the venues where Mark Cullen (b. 1972, Ireland) and Brian Duggan (b. 1971, Ireland) presented Short Shorts (2003), a participatory youth project which resulted in eight digital films exhibited in various location in Limerick.