Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was born on 30 November 1667 in Dublin, seven months after the death of his father, and was raised largely by his uncle Godwin Swift.

Swift attended Trinity College Dublin from 1682, receiving his BA in 1686.

In 1689 Swift moved to England to serve as secretary to the diplomat Sir William Temple, in whose household he met Esther Johnson, the 'Stella' of his later writings.

Swift was ordained a priest in the established Church of Ireland in January 1695 and assigned to the parish of Kilroot near Belfast.

Swift's first major prose satire, A Tale of a Tub, appeared anonymously in 1704 and established his reputation as a brilliant and controversial wit.

In June 1713 Swift became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, a post he held for the rest of his life.

In 1724 Swift published the pseudonymous Drapier's Letters, rallying Irish opposition to the debased 'Wood's halfpence' coinage and becoming an Irish popular hero.

Gulliver's Travels was published in London on 28 October 1726 and was an immediate and lasting success.

Swift's savage satirical pamphlet A Modest Proposal, mocking heartless attitudes toward Irish poverty, appeared in 1729.

Swift died on 19 October 1745 after years of declining health and was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral, leaving much of his fortune to found a hospital for the mentally ill.