Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was internationally acclaimed in his own time for Gulliver's Travels and other satires in verse and prose. In his native Ireland, however, he was most fervently admired as a patriot. Advocating economic self-sufficiency for Ireland and resistance to the high-handedness of the British government, Swift represented an articulate challenge to British rule. Although his reputation as an Irish patriot declined after his death, the 20th century has come to recognize him as a founding father of Irish nationalism.