For the Love of Ireland A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers

Jonathan Swift 16671745 The first great Irish writer to work in English, Jonathan Swift was born and died a Dubliner. He never knew his father, who died before he was born. Separated from his mother as a baby, he was supported by a stingy uncle who paid his fees at Trinity College, where he reacted against what he considered the pedantry of the curriculum and a foolishly authoritarian discipline. Known as a rebel, he earned his degree "by special grace." For the next twenty-five years, he went back and forth between Ireland and England, playing a variety of roles: antiwar journalist, participant in Whig and Tory political intrigues, advocate for the Church of Ireland (the Irish branch of the Anglican Church, in which he'd been ordained in 1694), London wit and writer who hoped to rise into a bishopric in the Church of England. Instead, he was made the dean of Saint Patrick's Cathedral in his native Dublin. The appointment horrified him. As he wrote to his friend Alexander Pope, he'd been sentenced to exile, "to die like a poisoned rat in a hole." But as the following writings show, the Irish exile had a change of heart. Disappointment and despair were overcome by the dean's passionate commitment to justice on behalf of the Irish people and the Dublin poor in particular. Later on he wrote again to Pope, inviting him to take up residence with him in his deanery where daily life offered contentment (as well as an outlet for his sense of humor). By this time, Swift himself (he failed to mention) had become a popular hero in Dublin city. Dublin is a walker's city and Swift on foot was a famous Dublin sight. "I walk the streets in peace . . . and am reputed the best walker in this Town and 5 miles around. . . . I seldom walk less than 4 miles, sometimes 6 or 8 or 10 or more, never beyond my own limits." Hearty literary travelers, equipped with a few of his writ- ings as well as a street map, will find Swift's Dublin. (And Joyce and Beckett's, too, who also walked the length and breadth of it, at all hours, in any weather.) from the legion club* As I stroll the city, oft I Spy a building large and lofty, Not a bow-shot from the College, Half the globe from sense and knowledge. By the prudent architect Placed against the church direct; Making good my grandam's jest, Near the churchyou know the rest. Tell us what this pile contains? Many a head that holds no brains. These demoniacs let me dub With the name of 'Legion Club. Such assemblies, you might swear, Meet when butchers bait a bear; Such a noise, and such haranguing, When a brother thief is hanging. Such a rout and such a rabble Run to hear jack-pudding gabble; Such a crowd their ordure throws On a far less villain's nose. . . . * The title of this savage attack on the Irish Parliament as a pack of politicians from hell comes from the Bible: "And Jesus asked him, What is thy name? And he said, Legion, because many devils were entered into him" (Luke 8:30). Could I from the building's top Hear the rattling thunder drop, While the Devil upon the roof, If the Devil be thunder-proof, Should with poker fiery red Crack the stones, and melt the lead; Drive them down on every skull, While the den of thieves is full; Quite destroy that harpies' nest, How might then our isle be blessed? . . . Yet should Swift endow the schools For his lunatics and fools, With a rood or two of land, I allow the pile may stand. You perhaps will ask me, why so? But it is with this proviso, Since the House is like to last, Let a royal grant be passed, That the club have right to dwell Each within his proper cell; With a passage left to creep in, And a hole above for peeping. Let them, when they once get in, Sell the nation for a pin; While they sit a-picking straws, Let them rave of making laws; While they never hold their tongue, Let them dabble in their dung; Let them form a grand committee, How to plague and starve the city;Cahill, Susan is the author of 'For the Love of Ireland A Literary Companion for Readers and Travelers', published 2001 under ISBN 9780345434197 and ISBN 0345434196.