Swift, Jonathan (1667–1745)

The small fishing port of Union Hall, County Cork, Ireland, looks out over its harbour. Nearby are secluded beaches that attract visitors with their panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean. It was in this village that Jonathan Swift wrote the poem ‘Carberiae Rupes’, in 1723.

Irish-born Anglican clergyman Jonathan Swift, also known as Dean Swift, who was also a cousin to John Dryden. A political pamphleteer and piercing satirist, Swift wrote his masterpiece Gulliver's Travels, a criticism of society and its institutions, set in an imaginary land of fantastic creatures, after his return to Dublin as the dean of St Patrick's.

Irish satirist and Anglican cleric. His best-known work is Gulliver's Travels (1726), an allegory (symbolic story with meaning beyond its literal sense) describing travel to lands inhabited by giants, miniature people, and intelligent horses. His satirical talents are evident in the pamphlet A Modest Proposal (1729), which he wrote in protest of the on-going famine in Ireland; it suggested that children of the poor should be eaten. His other works include The Tale of a Tub (1704), attacking corruption in religion and learning. His lucid prose style is simple and controlled and he imparted his views with fierce indignation and wit.

Born in Dublin, he was educated there at Trinity College, and ordained in 1694. Swift became secretary to the diplomat William Temple (1628–1699) at Moor Park, Surrey, where his friendship with the child ‘Stella’ (Esther Johnson; 1681–1728) began in 1689. Returning to Ireland, he was ordained in the Church of England in 1694, and in 1699 was made a prebendary of St Patrick's, Dublin. He made contributions to the Tory paper The Examiner, of which he was editor 1710–11. He obtained the deanery of St Patrick in 1713. His Journal to Stella is a series of intimate letters (1710–13), in which he described his life in London. From about 1738 his mind began to fail.