Oscar Wilde House
One Merrion Square
OSCAR'S parents, William and Jane, moved here in 1855, a few months after Oscar was born, and for the preceding two decades, Number One Merrion Square North, was the cultural epicentre of Dublin.
The Wilde children, Willie, Oscar and Isola, the only member of the Wilde family who was born here (in 1857), experienced something of an idyllic childhood in this house and in the park opposite.
They were schooled at home by two governesses and, unusually for Victorian times, they were present at many of the dinners and social events their parents held through the years.
Today this beautifully preserved building houses the prestigious American College Dublin. The university offers a range of courses including performing arts and creative writing.
Oscar Wilde would be delighted that his childhood home is now a centre for such studies.
The house is open for visitors at weekends during the school year and for seven days a week from May to September.
Oscar's Birthplace
21 Westland Row
THIS is where the story begins. Oscar was born in the master bedroom, on the top floor of this house on Monday, October 16, 1854. His parents Dr William Wilde and Jane Wilde moved in shortly after their marriage in November 1851.
The couple married in St Peter’s Church in Aungier Street, Dublin. The church was demolished in the 1950s. Today the YMCA stands in its place.
In September 1852, Jane gave birth to Oscar’s older brother William Charles Kingsbury Wilde, who was known as Willy. Two years later Oscar was born. As an eight-month-old baby Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was carried up the street towards Merrion Square and into the new family home with one of the grandest addresses in Dublin.
Today, 21 Westland Row, is the home to the Oscar Wilde Writers Centre, which is part of Trinity College Dublin.
St Mark’s Church
Pearse Street (formerly Brunswick Street)
THIS former Church of Ireland establishment is where Oscar Wilde was baptised on April 26, 1855, by the Rev Ralph Wilde, who was the brother of Oscar’s father.
This was the family’s local church when they lived at Westland Row. Today it is a vibrant Pentecostal church which serves the local community.
Oscar was baptised Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde. He famously said later 'some people have a name, I have a whole sentence’.
In her book, The Fall of the House of Wilde, Emer O’Sullivan writes: Only O’Flahertie bears the trace of an ancestral ghost. It comes from the unruly Gaelic clan on William’s mother’s side. Oscar and Fingal derive from the Celtic mythology made famous by James Macpherson’s Ossian poems. Oscar is Fingal’s grandson, and son of the poet Ossian. Jane wrote to a friend of the name: ‘Is that not grand, misty, Ossianic?'
Botany Bay
Trinity College Dublin
ON OCTOBER 10, 1871, six days before his seventeenth birthday, Oscar Wilde began his studies at Trinity.
Oscar studied Greats, otherwise known as Classics; the study of the language and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.
It was at Trinity that Wilde came under the influence of two extraordinary tutors, the distinguished classicist John Pentland Mahaffy, who would become Provost of Trinity, and Robert Tyrrell, the Regius Professor of Greek.
In November, Oscar was given rooms at 18 Botany Bay, which remains student accommodation to this day.
The tennis courts outside were not there during Oscar’s time here.
It takes approximately ten minutes to walk through the campus to the Wilde family home at Number 1 Merrion Square, so Oscar was never more than a short walk from his parents during his time at Trinity.
His accommodation had two bedrooms, a sitting room and a pantry. He shared the rooms here with his brother Willy.
The Old Library
Trinity College Dublin
THIS legendary library is where Oscar Wilde often studied during his time at Trinity.
Built between 1712 and 1732, is almost 65 metres (215 feet) long and contains 200,000 books.
The Library now holds an important Oscar Wilde collection which it acquired in 2011 from Julia Rosenthal, a London-based book dealer and lifelong collector of Wildean works.
The collection comprises more than 150 items of symbolic significance to Wilde’s biography in manuscript and print format, as well as photographs and unique memorabilia.
It is the only Oscar Wilde archive held in a public institution in Ireland, which is remarkable given he was born here.
Due to the popularity and the value placed on material relating to him, much of it is in the hands of private collectors.
The Old Library is where you will find the Oscar Wilde exhibition From Decadence to Despair during the 2024 Oscariana: A Wilde Dublin Festival.
The Gaiety Theatre
King Street South
OSCAR Wilde presented two lectures in this building in 1883, on Thursday November 22 and Friday November 23.
In the audience was the then 18-year-old WB Yeats. The young poet was extremely impressed.
This theatre opened in 1871 but was extended by theatre architect Frank Matcham in 1883, a few months before Oscar showed up to lecture.
Oscar’s first lecture was called the House Beautiful, basically it was about taste. The young aesthete was giving advice to an aspirational audience on the best way to decorate their homes, as well as the kind of poetry and novels they should read.
The second lecture was entitled, Personal Impressions of America.
This was the story of Oscar’s amazing year-long tour of the US and Canada the year before.
From Montreal in the North to Texas in the south and from San Fransicso in the West to Philadelphia in the East, Oscar lectured 141 times in eleven months and became a superstar in North America.
People in Europe at the time read about Oscar's exploits in awe.
The Shelbourne Hotel
27 Stephen’s Green
OSCAR Wilde stayed at this hotel in 1883 when he arrived in Dublin from his home in London.
Oscar’s mother Jane, aka Speranza, had sold the family home in Merrion Square four years before and she had also moved to London.
Speranza and Oscar’s brother Willy first lived in a small house in Knightsbridge before moving later to Chelsea. Willy, who had trained as a barrister, became a leader writer for The Daily Telegraph.
Oscar stayed at the Shelbourne when he did his two nights at the Gaiety Theatre.
After the second night he walked the short distance to Ely Place where he asked Constance Lloyd to marry him.
The Shelbourne Hotel guest book that Oscar signed is no longer in existence. The hotel retains guest books from 1905 onwards.
The Lloyd home
1 Ely Place
THIS was the house in which Oscar proposed marriage to 25-year-old beauty, Constance Lloyd, on November 23, 1883.
Constance was born and brought up in London.
But Ely Place is the house in which her mother was born, and Constance was a regular visitor to Ireland.
The Lloyd family had turned out to see Oscar give his talk at the Gaiety theatre that very evening.
The Lloyd family were very much in favour of the match because the Wildes were one of the most famous and respected families in the city.
The Oscar Wilde Memorial Statue
Merrion Square Park
THIS is a collection of three statues in Merrion Square.
The sculptures were unveiled in 1997 and were designed and made by English sculptor Danny Osborne. It was commissioned by the Guinness Ireland Group to create a statue commemorating Oscar Wilde.
It was unveiled in 1997, by Wilde's grandson Merlin Holland. The torso is of green nephrite jade from British Columbia, Canada, and pink thulite from Norway.
The legs are of Norwegian Blue Pearl granite with the shoes being black Indian charnockite and finished with bronze shoelace tips. The statue also wears a Trinity College tie made from glazed porcelain, and three rings – Wilde's wedding ring and two scarabs, one for good luck, the other for bad luck.
The statue is mounted with Wilde reclining on a large quartz boulder obtained by Osborne himself from the Wicklow Mountains. The sculpture also includes two pillars flanking the boulder. One pillar has on top of it, a nude pregnant representation of Wilde's wife Constance Lloyd.
The other one bears a male torso representing Dionysus, the Greek god of drama and wine. Both flanking sculptures are in bronze and granite, and both pillars have inscriptions from Wilde's poems carved onto them. The inscriptions of the quotes copy the personal handwriting of figures including Seamus Heaney, John B. Keane and President Michael D. Higgins.