Swift Festival returns to the Liberties

The Jonathan Swift Festival is on around the writer’s old home base of St Patrick’s Cathedral, November 22nd to 27th. 

Swift was an author best known for Gulliver’s Travels, which he wrote in 1726. He attended Trinity College and Oxford University. He had hopes of becoming a bishop or archbishop, but those dreams never came true for him.  

James Joyce said that Swift was the greatest satirist in the English language. One of his finest pieces of satire was A Modest Proposal, where he suggested poor families should sell their small children to the rich so that they could eat them. 

Activities in the festival include nightly Swift-inspired cocktails, games, and books in WXYZ bar in Aloft Hotel. On November 22nd, ‘Jonathan Swift: Savage Indignation’, the life of Jonathan Swift as told through interviews, drama, and music, is on at 8pm in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, with tickets costing €24.

On November 23^rd at 12 noon there is a Gulliver’s Travels bookmaking family workshop in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and later a tour called ‘Jonathan and the Jest’ at 3pm. This is a 70-minute tour through the satirical world of Swift’s works in the cathedral and Marsh’s Lane, and costs €17. 

Booking and more information about the festival can be found on the Jonathan Swift Festival website.