Constructed in 1824, ‘The Academy’ has had an interesting and varied history. Famous names associated with the building include W.B. Yeats, George Moore, Lady Gregory and G.B. Shaw. It has long been a centre for Arts and culture and it still stands proud as one of the most impressive buildings of its type in the Capital.

In 1824, The Dublin Oil and Gas Company, purchased the site and constructed the building now known as the Academy. By 1842 the site had been acquired by The Society of Antient Concerts, who adapted the interior of the Pearse Street property into 'an 800-seat hall with aTelford organ'.
The first concert at this new venue was a performance featuring extracts of Handel's 'Messiah' in April 1843, and the Concert Rooms soon overtook the
previously popular Rotunda Rooms as a fashionable venue.

A series of national and international singers and musicians appeared on its stage throughout the 19th century. These included, amongst others, the world
renowned Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, and the mother of writer George Bernard Shaw.

The Hall of the Antient Concert Rooms continued to be one of the venues favoured by various clubs and societies in 19th century Dublin, who 'organised regular entertainments known as “smoking concerts” in venues all over the city' (Ryan, 1998). The hall was also on occasion used for political gatherings, as evidenced by the fact that Charles Stewart Parnell once gave a speech here.

In 1899 the Rooms were used by the members of the Irish Literary Theatre (including Yeats, Lady Gregory, George Moore, Edward Martyn and others) as the location for the staging of plays before the later establishment of The Abbey Theatre. Also in 1899, the 'Lakes of Killarney' was put up for auction at the antient Concert Rooms and in 1904 James Joyce and the tenor Count John McCormack both performed here.
The building was also mentioned in 'Ulysses'.

By 1911, Edmund Sharp, sculptor, occupied the building and used the site as the location of his stone-carving works, and in the 1920s it was converted for use as a
cinema and continued to be used in this capacity until relatively recently, changing names several times in the interim.
In April 1956, the new Embassy Cinema opened on the site, replacing the previous Palace Cinema. Subsequently it became the Academy Cinema by which name it is still known.