Wealth flowed one way from the smaller island into the coffers of John Bull. England imposed legalities that made it impossible for Ireland to engage in fruitful trade or pursue current methods of manufacture.Įngland’s relationship with Ireland was blatantly extractive. He wrote and discoursed regularly on matters dealing with exploitative policies that kept Ireland and its people economically disadvantaged. From his pulpit, he urged co-religionists to exercise self-discipline and decency. Swift became immersed in pressing issues of the day. Except for a few excursions, he would spend the rest of his life in Ireland. Nonetheless Swift took his position and responsibilities seriously. By contrast, Dublin was a backwater on the outer reaches of Europe. However, he would have preferred to perform ecclesiastical duties in bustling London where much of the action was. The honor was a recognition of Swift’s talents. In the course of the Reformation, the cathedral became a Protestant house of worship. In 1713, Queen Anne named him the dean of St. He became an ordained priest in his church. Swift spent considerable time in England and traveled back and forth between the two islands. Their lot was a harsh and precarious one. Most had their ancestral lands confiscated. Irish Catholics - the indigenous Celts - were a displaced and impoverished people, having over time endured defeats by English forces. Known as “the Ascendancy,” the Anglicans held much of the wealth and political power in Ireland despite their comparably diminutive numbers. At odds with Catholics, Anglicans were also averse to Presbyterians who were doctrinally different. The Anglican Church, a Protestant denomination, arose in the wake of King Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Surrounded by the sea, the Emerald Isle’s inhabitants were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1667. Then there are the Yahoos - a word coined by Swift - depicted as uncivilized savages and all too human. And he meets the Houyhnhnms, horses that excel homo sapiens in cerebration.

Elsewhere, the errant traveler encounters hopelessly self-absorbed intellectuals. You’ve probably heard of Jonathan Swift, known famously as the author of “Gulliver’s Travels.” That perennially favorite tale is a hilarious saga as the wayward Lemuel Gulliver finds himself a giant in one realm, a minim in another.

A modest proposal essay