Jonathon Swift was a misanthrope and an Irish patriot. Can a truly great patriot rally function as a misanthrope? Swift has
been examined by literary theorists and popular historians because he wrote a large number of tracts pertaining to Irish affairs. Swift wrote pamphlets supporting the
Church of Ireland, in association with Archbishop of Dublin King, highlighting the parlous financing of the Church in Ireland, this being the established Church in Ireland as legislated for by the King of England.
Swift's major works: A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture and The Drapier's Letters are referred to and the reader draws their own conclusions. Swift emergd as a champion of Ireland where he claimed to find a 'land of slaves/ Where all are fools, and all are knaves.' Swift provides a vision of society in the Kingdom of Tribnia (anagram of Britain) in Gulliver's travels, where:
the Bulk of the People consisted wholly of Discoverers, Witnesses, Informers, Accusers, Prosecutors, Evidences, Swearers; together with their several subservient and subaltern Instruments; all under the Colours, the Conduct, and pay of Ministers and their Deputies.
Swift wrote 'few States are ruined by any Defect in their Institution, but generally by the Corruption of Manners.'
Swift railed about economic sanctions against imports of Irish cattle to England which served individual British vested interests.
Swift castigated the Irish House of Commons and the system of rack-renting that beggared Irish tenant farmers.