Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
The satirist Jonathan Swift (1667 -1745) had a love-hate relationship with Ireland. After almost a quarter of a century as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, he was still protesting the accident of birth that had made him (at least in the popular sense) an Irishman: 'I happened to be dropped here.' He did however champion Irish rights, advocating changes through his writings such as Irish Manufacture (1720) in which he suggested a boycott of English goods, and Drapier Letters (1724-1725), one of which contained the cry: 'Burn everything English but their coal.' This earned him the title of 'Hibernian Patriot.' On display is a later printing of his masterpiece, Gulliver's Travels (1726).