Oscar Wilde Memorial Sculpture

In the north-west corner of Merrion Square, across the road from No. 1, the house where he grew up, Oscar Wilde lounges on a large boulder of Wicklow quartz. Danny Osborne's 1997 sculpture is made from coloured stone rather than bronze: a jade smoking jacket with a pink thulite collar, granite trousers and polished dark stone shoes. Seen from one side Wilde is smirking, and from the other he looks sad. Two small pillars nearby carry quotations from his work. The park is free and open in daylight hours, about 10 minutes' walk from Trinity College. Wilde was jailed for homosexuality in 1895. Ireland decriminalised it in 1993 and voted for marriage equality in 2015.