Oscar Wilde's House

Oscar Wilde was eight months old when, in eighteen fifty-five, his parents moved him here from the house on Westland Row where he was born. Number one Merrion Square was the childhood and youth home of the future playwright, author of The Picture of Dorian Gray and comedies built on verbal duels. At the time, it was also his parents' work address.

His father, William Wilde, saw patients here as an eye and ear surgeon. In eighteen fifty-nine, he commissioned a side extension with separate consulting rooms. His reputation brought him patients and gave the family a life with six servants and governesses. By eighteen sixty-four, William had become eye surgeon to the British court in Ireland and received a knighthood. It was at this very moment that a former patient, Mary Travers, called into question what his practice rested upon.

Travers claimed that William Wilde sexually assaulted her during an appointment while she was under the effects of chloroform. It remained an accusation: there was no separate trial of the doctor over it. Mary began circulating a pamphlet in which the surgeon and his wife were easily recognizable. Jane Wilde, William's wife and the hostess of a well-known literary salon, barred her from appearing at the house and wrote to Mary's father, accusing his daughter of attempted extortion. Jane sought to stop the public attack; Mary demanded that the letter be acknowledged as libel and that she be paid two thousand pounds.

In December eighteen sixty-four, the case reached court. The proceedings concerned Jane's letter, but Mary's lawyer read out the accusation against William and his private correspondence. The hearings lasted a week. The jury found that Jane had libeled Mary, but awarded damages of only one farthing—a quarter of a penny. Mary won the case, yet received neither the sum she had demanded nor a court ruling on her main accusation. The trial cost the Wilde family about two thousand pounds in legal expenses, and William's professional reputation was damaged.

Ten-year-old Oscar was not a party to this lawsuit. His own story in the house unfolded one floor above. Jane, who published poetry under the name Speranza, gathered writers, artists, musicians, and politicians almost every Saturday. The children were not always sent out of the drawing room: they were present for the conversations and home performances. These gatherings continued until about eighteen seventy-four, when Oscar left to study at Oxford.

The plastered side wing built for William's patients has survived. The former reception rooms still have the old oak floorboards that Jane's guests walked across. American College Dublin now occupies the house: creative writing and performing arts are taught here, and visitors are received. The son's name stands on the facade, while the building's layout still preserves his parents' two professions—a doctor's consulting rooms downstairs and a literary salon upstairs.