Merrion Square is a Georgian square on the southside of Dublin city centre. It was laid out after 1762 and was largely complete by the beginning of the 19th century. It is considered one of Dublin's finest surviving squares. Three sides are lined with Georgian redbrick townhouses; the West side abuts the grounds of Leinster House, Government Buildings, the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery. The central railed-off garden is now a public park.

The park in the square was until recently officially named "Archbishop Ryan Park", after Dermot Ryan, the Catholic archbishop who transferred ownership to the city. The square was leased to the Archdiocese of Dublin by the Pembroke Estate in 1930 to permit the building of a Cathedral on the site to replace to the pro-Cathedral. Despite efforts over the next 20 years to advance the project, no progress was made and the site was transferred to the city of Dublin in 1974. Now managed by Dublin City Council, it contains a statue of Oscar Wilde, who resided in No. 1, Merrion Square from 1855 to 1876, many other sculptures and a collection of old Dublin lamp standards. In 2009, Dermot Ryan was criticised in the Murphy Report; in January 2010, Dublin City Council sought public views on renaming the Park. In September 2010, the City Council voted to rename the park as Merrion Square Park even though many wanted to name it after Oscar Wilde.

Until 1972 the British Embassy was based at No 39; however following the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland a crowd of over 20,000 people converged on the site in protest and the building was burnt to the ground.

Natives of Dublin city are very fond of their public statues, and sometimes give them amusing and/or rude nicknames. Please note that some of these nicknames would be considered offensive in many parts of the world; in Ireland, insults are considered the norm between friends and an Irish person is quite capable of applying an offensive epithet to someone they are extremely fond of. This statue has a number of nicknames including "The Quare In The Square" and "The Fag On The Crag"

This is probably Dublin's best statue and it is my favorite. It is located inside the park of Merrion Square, and can only really be seen from inside the park, so you'll have to arrive before closing time, which varies between 9:30pm in midsummer and 4:30pm in midwinter.

This statue of Wilde is impressive. The great man reclines on a rock and is positioned so that he is looking at the last house on the north side of Merrion Square, the house where he once lived. The statue is made from stone of different colours - for example, Wilde's jacket is green stone with red stone cuffs. Also part of the sculpture are two stone pillars which are covered in quotations from Wilde. One has a bronze figure of a pregnant naked woman kneeling on the top, while the other has a bronze male torso. My understanding is that they indicate Wilde's ambiguous sexuality and aesthetic sensibilities.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He was famous for always being elegantly turned out, wearing a green carnation in his buttonhole, and always ready with a witty riposte for any situation. His most famous literary works are his plays The Importance of Being Earnest and Lady Windermere's Fan and his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death.