It was a late Autumn night, with the rain falling gently down as I made my way home from the theatre. Down Merrion Street and then right into Merrion Square– the reclining statue inside the park railings illuminated by the street light caught my eye.

Oscar Wilde with his hand on his chin, looking across the road at house number one, where he spent all his childhood years. He seemed to me to be pondering on why it took nearly a hundred years for his county and native city to honour him with a statue.

Born in 21 Westland Row on October 16th 1854 and christened Oscar Fingal O’Flaherty Wilde, the family moved to number one Merrion Square when Oscar was eight months old. Educated at Trinity College and Magadalen College Oxford, a brilliant student, he married Constance Mary Lloyd in 1884.

They had two sons Cyril and Vyvyan born in 1885 and 1886 respectively. Despite all his problems, Oscar loved Mary all his short life.

The magnificent statue by the great sculptor Danny Osborne, who lives in the remote Beara peninsula in West Cork is one of intense vision, with magnificent attention to detail. It took Danny two and a half years of continuous work to make this fabulous statue. He travelled extensively to obtain the different stones used.

Oscar was a big man, 6ft. 3in. in height and we see him reclining on a large stone of quartz from Wicklow, 35 tonne in weight. He is aged about forty.

The statue is carved from different coloured stones to simulate his clothing. His smoking jacket is carved from nephrite jade; his cuffs from the rare stone thulite. Oscar’s trousers are blue stone granite from Norway. His shoes are black Indian granite. His shoelaces, buttons and green carnation are bronze.

Oscar wears a Trinity red boy tie made in glazed porcelain on top of a mauve porcelain shirt. The hands are solid porcelain with three rings of the same material. His wedding ring and an emerald ring on the middle finger of both hands, Oscar wore these all his life. The small ring on his left hand represents joy and the other misfortune. He said, “one cannot have joy without misfortune.”
Oscar’s head is porcelain and his face is described as both mask-like and lifelike.

Danny Osborne, the man who fashioned this magnificent sculpture, was born in England and moved to West Cork in 1971 and took out Irish citizenship. He is a man who loves and is inspired by remote places. He has concentrated for most of his career on painting, particularly landscapes of desolate and lonely places.

He has been on three expeditions to the Artic Circle and also on the first Irish Expedition to the North Peak of Mount Everest. The statue, commissioned by Guinness Ireland group, was unveiled on October 28th 1997.

As I made my way home, the clock on St. Matthew’s church chimed the midnight hour and I pondered on how this great city of ours can lay claim to so many famous people who have exercised a significant influence on world literature and the advancement of human thought.