Airline and archive in tributes to mark Oscar Wilde’s birth

One features a giant portrait of Wilde on the tail fin of a plane; the other involves the launch by Trinity College in Dublin of its Oscar Wilde digital collection of letters, photographs, and theatre programmes associated with the university’s most famous student who was born in Dublin on October 16, 1854.

Norwegian Airlines is honouring Wilde on the tail fin of a Boeing 737 MAX and a Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This is the airline’s second Irish ‘tail fin hero’, following explorer Tom Crean who also graces both aircraft.

Matthew Wood, a senior vice-president in long haul and new markets at Norwegian, said: “Our ‘tail fin heroes’ offer us a perfect chance to pay tribute to some of the greatest Irish men and women of all time. Oscar Wilde has inspired generations and we are very happy to have one of the greatest poets of all time adorn our aircraft.”

A more down to earth tribute is being paid by the famous writer’s alma mater, Trinity College Dublin, which today marks the launch of its Oscar Wilde digital collection with a public lecture by his biographer Michele Mendelssohn. She is Associate Professor of English at the University of Oxford, and author of the hugely successful biography Making Oscar Wilde.

Entitled Irish Eccentric to Global Icon: Making Oscar Wilde, the lecture will celebrate the launch of the college library’s Oscar Wilde digital collection. The manuscript collection, comprising some 150 items including letters, photographs, theatre programmes, as well as items of memorabilia, will now be made freely available online to a global audience.

In addition, a new catalogue of the library’s significant Oscar Wilde book collection, consisting of over 500 printed items, is also now available online.

The event, organised by the Library of Trinity College Dublin and hosted by Vice-Provost and Seamus Heaney Professor of Irish Writing, Chris Morash, also marks Wilde’s birthday. As well as his literary accomplishments, Oscar Wilde was known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation.

He also became a figure of some notoriety for his lifestyle and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

Commenting on the significance of the digital collection, the library’s Head of Research Collections Laura Shanahan says: “The Oscar Wilde Collection held here at the Library of Trinity College Dublin is unparalleled in giving a unique insight to this remarkable man and his experiences during the most challenging period of his life. In making this collection available online, fans and researchers around the world will now have unfiltered access to this material, which until very recently was in private hands.

“In her book, Mendelssohn makes reference to this being the ‘the Golden Age of the Archive’, where digitisation of collections is allowing new research and discoveries about some of the most significant characters of their generation and we in the library are delighted to be a part of this.”

Last year the library hosted the first major Irish exhibition on Oscar Wilde entitled From Decadence to Despair. Curated by assistant librarian Caoimhe Ní Ghormáin, it mapped out his meteoric rise to fame and his dramatic fall from grace.