Author. He is recognized as an Anglo-Irishman author, who is one of the greatest satirists of his or any other times. Besides being an author, he was Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral and active politically. His 1726 "Gulliver's Travels" is now known mostly in expurgated versions for children. His satirical venom is displayed in his anonymously published 1729 "A Modest Proposal," which recommended the remedy of poverty and hunger in Ireland was the cooking of surplus children. At times, he was published under the name of Isaac Bickerstaff. Escaping the ruins of the family's English estate after the Civil War, his father and uncles came to Ireland seeking a fortune and a new life. His father and one uncle studied law and started a practice. Seven months before his birth, his father died. Eventually, he was placed in the care of an uncle, Godwin Swift, while his mother returned to England. At age six, he was sent to a boarding school, Kilkenny College, and staying until age 15. He started studies at Trinity College in Dublin, graduating in 1686. Any further education was halted as political arrest in Ireland caused him to flee to England in 1688. The next year, he became a secretary to Sir of William Temple, 1st Baronet at Moor Park. Temple had served in the Irish Parliament, was a diplomat and an author of mostly non-fictional essays. It was during this time he met an 8-year-old servant's daughter, Esther Johnson, who he tutored, which started a life-long friendship. He traveled back and forth between England and Ireland for some years. Swift received his M.A. from Hart Hall in Oxford in 1692. Between 1691 and 1694, he wrote a number of poems, notably six odes, but it was not until his writing had a satiric tone that he received any notice as an author. In January of 1695 he was ordained as a priest in the Anglican church. It was during this time he met his beloved Esther Vanhomrigh, with whom he would have an intense seventeen-year relationship. In 1694, he was given an administrative position at the Diocese of Connor in Ireland. He was not happy with the rural parish assigned to him and he returned to England to be employed by Temple again. Being inspired by his two female muses, he wrote about Esther Johnson with the fictional name as "Stella" and Esther Vanhomrigh as "Vanessa." After Vanhomrigh's 1723 death, his correspondence between her was published. After Temple's death, he had hopes of obtaining another high position in England but all failed. He returned to Ireland for a position that was filled by another. He did secure a position as parish vicar and secretary to the Earl of Berkeley in the rural village of Kilroot, remaining there for four years, while traveling to London regularly to ensure his essays were published, especially political ones. After the 1690 death of Frederick Herman Schomberg, he wrote the military hero's epitaph, which is on display in St. Patrick Cathedral in Dublin. Between 1710 and 1713 he relocated to London and his political stance changed to supporting the Tories' Political Party. He became the Tories' chief pamphleteer and political writer and, by the end of October of 1710, had become the editor of the Tory journal, "The Examiner," which he continued to edit until June 14, 1711. He was awarded for his service by being appointed in April of 1713 as Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. With the political environment changing, he returned to Ireland after King George I came to the throne in 1714. He wrote poems in "Journal to Stella." In 1726 he wrote his four-book masterpiece "Gulliver's Travels," which was later edited for children. For years he suffered with an inner ear problem, Ménière, Disease, which causes dizziness. His health declined steadily as he aged and later suffered a paralytic stroke, with subsequent aphasia, not being able to speak. In 1742 he was declared incapable of caring for himself, and guardians were appointed. After his death in 1745, he was buried in the floor of St Patrick's Cathedral. His will left money to build a mental hospital. He wrote his own epitaph which was on his orders engraved and gilded in large letters and stands above the place of his burial. A bust of him is located in the church