New Oscar Wilde Tribute

[PeterRS]

So much has been written about Oscan Wilde that we think we know most about his life. We know he was born in Dublin and spent most of his working life in London. Less well known (if at all), he spent more of the rest of his life in the Northern Irish town of Enniskillen than anywhere else. As a boarder at Portora Royal School he lived in the city between 1864 and 1871.

"The Happy Prince" is the title of a lovely short story Wilde wrote in 1888. In essence it tells the simple tale of a poor town where a swallow sits on top of a statue, having missed the annual migration south with the rest of the swallows. The statue is of a young Prince who never knew sadness in his life for sorrow was not permitted in his castle. Seeing the poverty in the town from high on his plinth, the statue asks the swallow to strip off the gold leaf covering his body and give it to the poor. 

Now Enniskillen is marking Wilde's years of sojourn in the town. A new literary tourism project has mounted 150 gold-leaf sculpted swallows over 86 buildings in the town, including a butcher's shop, s florist, a jeweller and an optician. They follow a trail that leads from a new mural of The Happy Prince to Portora Castle. Two are particularly associated with Wilde the man. One is over a window in the local jail in remembrance of the time he spent in Reading Jail. The other is by the Victoria Cross Memorial in tribute to Wilde's elder son who was killed in action in World War 1.

Enniskillen is also marking another famous literary personality who also boarded at Portora, Samuel Beckett. Neither writer had previously been celebrated by Enniskillen. Now it is hoped this town more noted for its position as a centre of what were called "The Troubes", the nationalist and religious conflict that scarred Northern Ireland between the 1960s and 1990s, will become better known for its literary giants.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/15/enniskillen-mounts-oscar-wilde-tribute-with-flight-of-gold-leaf-swallows