360cities view of Merrion Square, Dublin SW path
The Merrion Square is also known for being the home of many noble and significant figures who helped mold the way the world functions; from revolutionary playwrights, Oscar Wilde to “the discoverer of wave mechanics and Nobel Prize winner for Physics, Erwin Schrodinger” (Kilfeather 84). Having studied quantum mechanics and Schrodinger’s equation last semester, it is nice to have some background information about him (his residency) other than his very complicated functions. Bellow, we can visualize what some of the homes in Merrion Square looked like, but not just any home, the home of arguably the greatest Victorian playwright Oscar Wilde.
Siobhán Kilfeather in her book Dublin: a Cultural History describes the houses in Merrion Square as, “The houses are faced with handmade bricks produced in brickworks around the city. The public park in the center belonged for some time to the Church and was presented to Dublin Corporation by Archbishop Dermot Ryan, after whom it is named” (83). We could truly see how the church and religion had impacted the public, by looking at the design of the windows and doors that occupied the home of Oscar Wilde.
The stained glass artwork is duplicated just how it would be in a Catholic Church. Oscar Wilde’s mother secretly having baptized him in a Catholic Church has influenced the artwork that is displayed around his house in Dublin. Throughout his life he had desired to become a true Catholic (observed from his plays, as the protagonists in the plays seek Catharism) but was discouraged by his peers and mainly his father, with the worry that his son would be denied entry to Anglican Oxford University. It was not until on his deathbed that Oscar Wilde officially converted to Catholicism, passing away as a Catholic. However, from the windows of his house, it is seen that the Catholic influence was always in him, it just took a wile for him to truly convert.
