Friendless at the end, but Wilde didn’t die faithless

OSCAR Wilde, perhaps the most widely quoted Irish wit of all time, once said: ‘I don’t want to go to Heaven. None of my friends are there.’

But like many who have shunned faith for most of their life, when death loomed he changed his mind and, according to an astonishing new find, became a Catholic.

It was an unlikely cast of Northern Ireland people who uncovered this conversion including a member of the Hole in the Wall comedy group, two priests, one of whom was almost killed in a gun attack in South Africa and his brother.

To most people Wilde was a brilliant wit and writer whose life fell into ruin when he was exposed as gay in a celebrated trial where he faced Edward Carson across the courtroom. It was an ignominious end to Wilde’s public life and he died almost friendless in Paris with only 56 people at his funeral.

As he said: “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”

He may have done so, but there was no denying his genius.