Ireland
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Jonathan Swift
Dublin, Ireland
Archival Overview
Foremost prose satirist in the English language and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, whose Gulliver's Travels and biting satire A Modest Proposal exposed the savagery and hypocrisy of human politics.
Biographical Record
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, was ordained into the Church of Ireland, becoming Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in 1713. A ferocious political pamphleteer during London's Queen Anne era, he championed the cause of the impoverished Irish people in his famous Drapier's Letters against British financial exploitation.
His satire reached ruthless perfection in A Modest Proposal (1729), deadpan proposing that impoverished Irish parents sell their surplus infants as delicious roasted food for wealthy British landlords to solve starvation. In 1726, he published Gulliver's Travels, ostensibly a travel adventure among Lilliputians, giants, and rational horses (Houyhnhnms), which stands as humanity's most incisive dissection of human pettiness, warmongering, and moral corruption.
Key Life Milestones
Publication of Gulliver's Travels in London
Published under the pseudonym Lemuel Gulliver, immediately selling out and becoming an immortal classic.
Publication of A Modest Proposal
Penned the most famous piece of savage irony in world literature to shame British neglect of Irish famine.
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Final Resting Place
Perpetual MemorialDublin, Ireland