Merrion Square and Oscar Wilde

You finish in one of the most elegant Georgian squares in Europe. Merrion Square was laid out in 1762 on the estate of Viscount FitzWilliam, and its brick houses, with coloured doors and fanlights, were largely complete by the early 19th century.

1Famous neighbours

Look at the corner house, No. 1. Oscar Wilde lived there from 1855 to 1876, from childhood to young adulthood. His father, Sir William Wilde, was a renowned eye and ear surgeon, and his mother, Jane, a nationalist poet who wrote as ‘Speranza’. At No. 58 lived Daniel O'Connell, the politician who won Catholic Emancipation, and at No. 82 the poet W. B. Yeats. Many of the houses carry plaques recalling their former residents.

2A Wilde of coloured stone

The Wilde statue, by the sculptor Danny Osborne, was unveiled in 1997. It is made from stones of different colours: green jade for the jacket, pink thulite for the collar and black granite for the trousers. Wilde reclines on a block of quartz, gazing with a half-smile towards his childhood home.

Until 1974, the park was open only to residents with a key.

Around you, the square sums up Georgian Dublin: brick, iron railings and doors in every colour, many of them now offices, a few still homes.

3What to look for

• The Georgian doors, each a different colour, with their semicircular fanlights.
• The plaque on No. 1, the Wilde family home.
• The two pillars beside the statue, carved with Wilde quotations.