ABSTRACT

William Robert Wills Wilde (1815-1876) was a renaissance man in terms of his interests, abilities and achievements. His main occupation was as an eye and ear surgeon, but he also published extensively on medicine, archaeology, antiquities and folklore. He worked as Medical Commissioner on the Irish Census Reports of 1841, 1851 and 1861, and, through his involvement with various committees and associations, he was a public intellectual before the phrase was used. Moreover, through his marriage to the acclaimed nationalist poet, Speranza, he was part of a celebrity couple, who were cheered when they appeared in public in Dublin. Retrospectively, he gained a different type of celebrity as the father of the brilliant writer, Oscar Wilde.