O’Mahony’s Bookshop

120 O’Connell St, LimerickGoogle Maps

Established in 1902, O’Mahony’s is a family-run bookshop that has been trading books for 120 years.
The founder, J.P. O’Mahony, was good friends with Allen Lane of Penguin books, and was the first person in Ireland to buy paperbacks from him after the war.
Censorship was prevalent in Ireland until the 1970s. Later, as book covers and contents became bolder, the staff at O’Mahony’s would often find books turned face-in on the shelves.
The exterior and interior of the building has been modernised, renovated and expanded numerous times over the years, notably winning an RIAI Architectural Award in 1997 for work done by architect Eamon Matthews.
This site was one of twenty-six listed venues for the 22nd edition of EVA in 1998, curated by Paul M. O‘Reilly (b. 1934, USA/Ireland) and titled Circus ZZ. This was the first and only edition to be adjudicated by an EVA employee. That year he worked as the director and curator of Limerick City Gallery of Art and administrator of EVA. It was the most expansive in EVA’s history in terms of number of venues and artists up to this point. This edition of EVA also introduced a number of changes to the format of the exhibition, including a change of date from winter to summer.
Jonathan Horowitz (b. 1966, USA) presented Interracial Buddies, a five-part video series that was also exhibited across the River House and Michael Healy Architects venues.