Oscar Wilde
“Fun, unfortunately, is so much fun.”
I am at a corner of Merrion Square Park, Dublin, beside myself with excitement. Not just because it is a bright sunny day with blue skies and there are cobbled streets everywhere, but because Oscar Wilde just called me.
Yes, that is right, he called me on my mobile and told me about his mother, “Jane ‘Speranza’ Wilde, poet and political provocateur, as preposterous as she was endearing, who loved me and was loyal to the last... They almost put her in prison for writing seditious verse; imagine if they had — two jailbirds in one family!”
Easily my most favourite thing about Dublin were the talking statues. There are 12 of these across the city and they will all speak to you politely, if you want them to, in the voices of famous Irish writers and television, stage and film personalities.
So I learn that Irish novelist John Banville has written the lines for Wilde, and Andrew Scott (remember Jim Moriarty in the BBC series Sherlock ?) has lent him his voice. Wilde looks down at me as he sprawls on a rock and instructs me to look across the park fence where his home still stands. He was born there in 1854, he says. The sculptor of Oscar Wilde’s remarkable statue is Danny Osborne, Irish of course. The pink collar of Wilde’s shirt is made of a semi-precious stone called thulite, brought all the way from Norway, along with the larvikite that is his trousers, while the rest of his jacket is of shiny jade from Canada. His hands and proud head are of jade from Guatemala. His shoes are black granite.
I wave goodbye and giggle at his parting shot. He makes a snarky comment about his chief rival, George Bernard Shaw. “I used to call him Pshaw!”
GB Shaw
“Look at me! — with my best foot forward!”
George Bernard Shaw stands tall and elegant, arms crossed, at the National Gallery of Ireland. His life-sized statue was made by a close friend, Paolo Troubetzkoy. They say, like Shaw, the Russian artist too advocated vegetarianism. Troubetzkoy has sculpted three statues of Shaw. Irish comic writer Arthur Mathews and actor-writer Stephen Brennan are Shaw’s voice. Shaw says, with feeling, that all he learned in Ireland was right here at the National Gallery. He so loved the place that he actually bequeathed one-third of his royalties to the museum. So every time someone watches a performance of his plays, the National Gallery gets a little something from him. He describes the streets around the museum: “Oh! When I think of the history of these streets so close to where we are today… Men and women marching up and down; becoming agitated and excited at the political developments. The shouting, and the cheering, and the singing, and at night the drunks causing consternation. The dogs and children scurrying at their feet — unconcerned by the great debates raging in adult minds around them...” He mentions the first time he saw some famous paintings at this very gallery and I scurry off to see them: Titian, Canaletto, Velazquez and a Caravaggio. But first, I pose just like him and beg a fellow visitor at the museum to take my picture.
Molly Malone
“I never want for company. People can be a little too familiar with me though — not my fault I’m stuck in this dress.”
If you venture out at night, you might meet her ghost. Molly Malone is a fishmonger who once sold cockles and mussels on the streets of Dublin. Today, her statue stands there with her wheelbarrow, not far from the river Liffey from where she got her catch. And, if you strain your ears, you can hear her story in her own words. The buxom Molly lived in the 17th Century and, while she sold fresh cockles and mussels from the sea during the day, they say she was a sex worker by night. The statue’s bosom has an extra burnish, as most tourists can’t keep their hands off her. Sadly, Molly got fever and died, and the song about her has become an anthem of sorts. She even has a day dedicated to her, June 13. Sinéad O’Connor and U2 are some of the singers who have sung this song. Molly’s statue was made by Irish sculptor Jeanne Rynhart to commemorate Dublin’s millennium year in 1988. Irish musicians The Dubliners sang ‘Molly Malone’ at the function and Rynhart sang along with them. And by the way, the statue of Molly Malone speaks to you in the voice of Irish singer Maria Doyle Kennedy. Molly has moved around a bit, but now stands at the corner of Suffolk Street, not too far from the Tourist Office.
(The writer was in Dublin at the invitation of Tourism Ireland.)
