Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin on 30 November 1667, entered Trinity College Dublin, and became the dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in 1713. He wrote Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal and Cadenus and Vanessa, often hiding behind invented names such as Lemuel Gulliver and Isaac Bickerstaff. His satire cut through politics, religion and human pretence with a calm voice that made stupidity sound like sense. He died in Dublin on 19 October 1745 and was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral.