Burning everything that came from England except their people and their coals: Why is Jonathan Swift still worthy of study in the 21 st century?
In may 1720, just over 300 years ago, the Rev. Jonathon Swift, Doctor of Divinity Dean of St Patrick’s Dublin penned this famous aphorism: beloved of generations of Irish nationalist politicians. It appeared in a pamphlet entitled A proposal for the universal use of Irish manufacture (an early form of buy Irish campaign). Not surprisingly such well-expressed, even ‘incendiary’, sentiments caused serious trouble. This pamphlet was the first step in the creation of Swift’s enduring reputation as the ‘Hibernian patriot’. It was followed by the Drapier’s letters of 1724 and Swift’s Irish pamphlets culminated in 1729 in the publication of A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of the poor people in Ireland being a burden on their parents or country and for making them beneficial to the public (an eat Irish campaign?). In the meantime Swift managed to publish Gulliver’s Travels in 1726; the 1720s were his most prolific decade. Since his death in 1745 Swift has been the subject of dozens of full-life biographies with three new biographies, totaling nearly 3,000 pages, having been published in the last twenty years alone. This lecture takes a biographical approach to address the perennial question of why the Dean of
St Patrick’s continues to be so fascinating, relevant, and worthy of such enduring interest, 275 years after his death.
Dr Brendan Twomey is an Independent Scholar and Visiting Fellow Centre for Early Modern History, TCD.
Higher Education: PhD, (Personal financial management in early eighteenth-century Ireland), TCD, 2018. MPhil, Early modern history TCD, 2014. MA Local History, Maynooth, 2002. MBA, DCU 1992. B Comm., UCD 1978.
Having retired in 2012 following a 40 career in banking Brendan undertook a PhD in TCD under the supervision of Prof. David Dickson.
