Robert Mahony

A Character, Panegyric, and Description of the Legion Club (1736)

In Luke 8:30, Jesus asks a man possessed by devils for his name, and the demons within him answer “Legion,” because there were so many of them. The Irish Parliament, Swiff s subject here, becomes the “Legion Club” because it was dominated by landowners who only reluctantly gave financial support to the Church of Ireland, though it was the legally established church and the institution that ensured their own privileged position in society, and who continually schemed to reduce that support—in the case occasioning this poem, via a House of Commons bill to remove the tithes on pasturage. Not that it required much to trigger Swift’s antagonism toward the Irish Parliament, which he saw as an institution made up of spineless beings who kowtowed to English interests and obsequiously accepted their drastically diminished powers under the Declaratory Act of 1720. Copy-text: Works, ed. Faulkner, 1762.

Maxims Controlled in Ireland (1729)

Written in 1729 but not published until 1765, this (unfinished) piece emphasizes a point Swift repeatedly came back to in his writings: namely, that Ireland’s semi-colonial situation was so uniquely insupportable and anomalous that it differed from all other countries and thus was not governed by the same general laws and principles that prevailed everywhere else. This point is reinforced through the enumeration of several maxims judged to be universally applicable but “controlled” (i.e., contradicted) in Ireland. The implication is that Ireland’s problems require very special solutions, ones not based on the experiences or practices of other countries. Copy-text: Works, ed. Deane Swift (1765).

Mary the Cook-Maid’s Letter (1718)

Written in 1718 as part of a series of humorous verses addressed to the Rev. Thomas Sheridan, with whom Swift maintained a close but bantering (and on occasion querulous) friendship, this poem has Swift speaking through the conversational cadences of his cook Mary to chastise Sheridan for going beyond the bounds of propriety in his raillery of Swift in an earlier verse. As with Frances Harris’s Petition, the impersonation of his cook suggests at once Swift’s enjoyment of his superior social status—“mocking” this servant in both senses of that word—and his fundamental appreciation of her loyalty to him, along with his obvious relish in being able to inhabit her social and linguistic worlds.

Whitshed’s Motto on His Coach (1724)

William Whitshed, whose family motto was “Liberias et natale solum,” was in Faulkner’s words “That infamous Chief Justice, who twice prosecuted the Drapier, and dissolved the Grand Jury for not finding the Bill against him.” He was in office as Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1724, when the government tried to prosecute the anonymous author of the Fourth Drapier’s Letter (whom all knew to be Swift) and John Harding, the printer. But two successive grand juries refused to present any indictment against either, despite Whitshed’s strenuous urging, and chose instead to return a presentment against “all such persons as have attempted … to impose the halfpence on us.” See head-note to An Excellent New Song on a Seditious Pamphlet and A Short View of the State of Ireland, note 7.

The Story of the Injured Lady (1707)

Though not published until 1746, this pamphlet was written in 1707, shortly after ratification of the Act of Union between England and Scotland. Showing the influence of William Molyneux’s The Case of Ireland … Stated (1698), it is Swift’s earliest sustained protest against England’s treatment of Ireland as a colony. Both Ireland’s pitiable plight and what Swift saw as England’s ill-advised “marriage” with Scotland are dramatized through the allegory of a dysfunctional menage-a-trois consisting of a “Gentleman in the Neighbourhood” (England) and his “two Mistresses” (Scotland and Ireland). The Friend’s Answer urges the Lady to take concrete steps to combat her oppression rather than merely play the role of passive victim, thus underscoring the need of the Irish to help themselves through organized political action. Copy-text: Works ed. Faulkner, 1746.

The Description of an Irish-Feast (1720)

This verse is a translation from the Irish Plearaca na Ruarcach, a contemporary poem by Aodh Mac Gabhrain (Hugh MacGauran) celebrating an O’Rourke chieftain of the sixteenth century who rebelled against the English overlords. Swift no doubt worked from a literal translation in prose, perhaps supplied by MacGauran himself. A manuscript of the Irish text is preserved in Trinity College Library, Dublin, followed by Swift’s poem (TCD MS 1325). The poem in Irish was set to music by the famous blind harper Turlough O’Carolan (or Carolan), the most “classical” of Irish composers in his time, and folk anecdotes link him with Swift, even asserting that they met—a distinct possibility since Swift’s friend, the Rev. Patrick Delany, was a patron of O’Carolan.

A Proposal to Pay off the Debt of the Nation (1732)

This tract, published in 1732, is one of several pieces on ecclesiastical matters that were written during this period, all critical of the excessive power and wealth of the Irish bishops (see the poem On the Irish Bishops). In this case, the subject is dealt with through humor and irony. Adopting the persona of an Englishman who has recently obtained a lucrative employment in the country, Swift presents himself as someone eager to make a contribution to his new home by coming up with a way to solve Ireland’s high national debt—specifically, through a proposal that bishops help pay off this debt by agreeing to the sale of church lands and by accepting restrictions on their “fines”—that is, the fees they get, equivalent to the increase in rent, each time their tenants leases are renewed.

Sermon, Causes of the Wretched Condition of Ireland (late 1720s-early 1730s?)

This sermon of uncertain date (not published until 1762) well demonstrates why Swift termed his sermons “preaching pamphlets.” Composed of a litany of complaints directed against what he deemed the causes of Ireland’s misery, and throwing a particular spotlight on problems related to the lower classes (beggars and servants) and poorly administered charitable institutions, the sermon combines a deep sense of outrage and despair with a refusal to relinquish the search for solutions to the country’s seemingly insoluble social and economic woes. As in other of Swift’s Irish tracts, the poor are here treated harshly, without a shred of sentimentality, while the ultimate blame is directed at “those Oppressors, who first stripped them of all their Substance.” Copy-text: Works, ed. Faulkner (1762).

On the Irish Bishops (1732)

This poem, which appeared untitled in Faulkner’s edition, was occasioned by two bills (a Bill of Residence and a Bill of Division) sponsored by the bishops of the Church of Ireland and passed by the House of Lords in February 1732, which would have compelled most of the lower clergy to reside in their parishes and build on the land allotted to them, and which would have enabled the bishop of the diocese to divide a parish valued at more than £100 per year without the consent of the incumbent parish minister. Since both bills would have had the effect of reducing the income of the inferior clergy while expanding the authority of the bishops, Swift fiercely opposed their passage, accusing their episcopal supporters of acting out of “the spirit of ambition and love of power, to make the whole body of the clergy their slaves and vassals until the day of judgment, under the load of poverty and contempt.” Partly on the strength of his highprofile pamphlet campaign against the bills, both were defeated in the House of Commons at the end of February.

The Humble Petition of Frances Harris (1701)

This poem was written while Swift was in Ireland in 1701 as chaplain to the 2nd Earl of Berkeley, one of the Lords Justices appointed by the government to substitute in the absence of the Lord-Lieutenant. Chaplaincies to powerful or aspiring politicians were sought by ambitious clergymen to improve their own chances for advancement in the church; obviously, then, Swift as Berkeley’s chaplain would not be inclined to court anyone as humble as Frances Harris, who was employed as a waiting woman to Lord Berkeley’s daughter, Lady Elizabeth (the poem’s “Lady Betty”). The humor of the poem, thus, rolls out at Harris’s expense, yet Swift’s simultaneous empathy toward her is evident in his sensitive use of this ordinary woman’s style of speech.