{"id":168182,"date":"2025-11-30T21:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/168182\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T21:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:20:09","slug":"very-progressive-ireland-celebrated-as-bust-of-oscar-wilde-is-unveiled-in-paris-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/168182\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Very progressive\u2019 Ireland celebrated as bust of Oscar Wilde is unveiled in Paris \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ireland<\/a> remains a leading light for progress at a time when hate crimes are rising across much of Europe and leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are weaponising LGBTQ+<\/a> rights, British actor Simon Callow said as he attended the unveiling of a bust of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The referendum in 2015 was a \u201cwonderful thing\u201d that was \u201crecognised around the world\u201d, he said, because it was \u201cso unequivocal\u201d. <\/p>\n

Callow was among several dozen guests invited to the Irish embassy in Paris for the unveiling of a bronze bust of Oscar Wilde, commissioned to mark the 125th anniversary of his death. \u201cIreland is regarded as a very progressive place, and this (the artwork) is very much a manifestation of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Created by Czech artist Marie \u0160eborov\u00e1, the Wilde bust was commissioned by Paris-based former barrister Bill Shipsey, founder of the Art for Human Rights movement. <\/p>\n

Callow, who attended the event with his husband, Sebastian Fox, admits that he has been \u201cfascinated\u201d by the Irish dramatist \u201csince boyhood\u201d. Callow has written a biography of Wilde and in 2018, performed in the Frank McGuinness stage adaptation of De Profundis, the posthumously published letter written by the playwright from his prison cell to his former lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. He was sentenced to two years\u2019 hard labour in May 1895, after being convicted of \u201cgross indecency\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"IrishIrish ambassador to France Niall Burgess with British broadcaster and former politician Gyles Brandreth at Oscar Wilde’s grave in P\u00e8re Lachaise, Paris. Photograph: Bill Shipsey <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an overused word,\u201d Callow said, \u201cbut Oscar Wilde was a sort of martyr for his sexuality. Although, in fact, his being put in prison set back the cause of gay liberation, because everyone was terrified of the consequences of being gay. But, nonetheless, he was the most articulate and prominent gay man to have been punished in Britain. I\u2019ve always been drawn to him.\u201d <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Oscar Wilde\u2019s forgotten friend who nurtured him back from prison life on the French RivieraOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Merlin Holland, a grandson of Oscar Wilde, maintained that the dramatist \u201cnever stood for anything except the human spirit\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would be delighted to be held up as a gay icon, but what he wouldn\u2019t want is to be chained up on a pedestal by the gay movement saying \u2018you are ours, go away everyone else\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cI think he would be very happy that his misfortune, if we were to put it like that, has been of use to another generation, but (his legacy is) not just that. <\/p>\n

\"ActorActor Simon Callow (right) pictured with his husband Sebastian Fox at the event. Photograph: Sharon Gaffney <\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about Oscar Wilde is that it\u2019s never either\/or. It\u2019s always both\/and. He was Protestant and Catholic, Irish and English. He was homosexual, but married with two children. It\u2019s that combination of two sides which one always has to recognise. <\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose, in a sense, that\u2019s exactly what the bust is saying. It represents the aesthete and slightly dandified Wilde, but it\u2019s also the intellectual, the man of letters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holland believes that his grandfather continues to appeal to new audiences, and particularly younger generations, more than a century after his death because of \u201chis sensuality, his rebellion against the system, his integrity for standing up for what he believed in, come what may, and for his individuality in a time of total conformity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe garden at the Irish embassy in Paris, where the bust of Oscar Wilde will sit alongside an existing bust of designer Eileen Gray. Photograph: Sharon Gaffney <\/p>\n

Although one of the most popular and influential literary figures in London in the early 1890s, Wilde spent his final years in Paris, where he died impoverished and in voluntary exile at the age of 46.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a social pariah,\u201d said Callow. \u201cHe was absolutely destroyed by his incarceration, by the fact of being a gay man. His last few years were very, very difficult. <\/p>\n

\u201cVery few people wanted to be seen with Oscar Wilde, so it\u2019s wonderful that here, now, with this bust, he is finally being honoured.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Oscar Wilde\u2019s British Library reading pass reissued 130 years after confiscationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland remains a leading light for progress at a time when hate crimes are rising across much of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168183,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1814,61,60,4829,43,7652,1838],"class_list":{"0":"post-168182","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-france","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-lgbtq","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-oscar-wilde","14":"tag-paris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}