Ireland in the Days of Dean Swift: Restored Classics to Go Edition

This volume offers a vivid political portrait of Ireland in the age of Dean Swift, bringing together tracts, letters, and satires that expose a nation strained by poverty, corruption, and dependence. Through the famous Drapier's Letters and related writings, Swift emerges as a fierce defender of Irish interests, challenging William Wood's corrupt halfpence scheme and the officials who backed it. He argues that the people of Ireland have rejected the coinage, that no royal or ministerial claim can justify imposing it, and that resistance to such public injury is a test of liberty and national dignity. The collection also includes legal and political pieces shaped by the government's efforts to punish Swift's printer, where grand juries, intimidation, and public courage become part of the larger struggle. Alongside these polemics are satirical meditations on famine, landlord greed, absentee rule, faction, and national decay, as well as comic domestic and political sketches that turn disorder into biting social criticism. Swift's language is at once ironical, fierce, and morally urgent, exposing the gulf between private profit and public welfare while insisting on Ireland's right to justice, common sense, and self-respect. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.