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clear=all>  <TABLE> <TR> <TD valign="TOP"> <IMG SRC="http://www.irelandseye.com/newmedia/culture/literature/jonathan_swift_logo.jpg" ALT="Jonathan Swift's Ireland logo"> <h3>Jonathan Swift's long journey to Kilroot, County Antrim</h3> <P> Jonathan Swift was born on November 30 1667 in Hoey’s Court, in the parish of St Werburgh, a district dominated by Dublin Castle and shaped by its medieval walls. Less than half a mile away, between St Bridget Street and St Patrick Street, stood St Patrick’s Cathedral, on the south-western corner of the old city, at one end of the Coombe. Swift’s parents were both from English families who had moved to Ireland earlier in the century in the hope of rapid advancement in a country enjoying relative peace after the Cromwellian wars. Swift’s mother, Abigail Erick, was probably born in Dublin; his father, Jonathan, arrived with three brothers during the Restoration. All the brothers found employment within the expanding legal administration in the city, with Jonathan serving as steward to the King’s Inns, the Law Society of Ireland. A daughter, Jan, was born to Jonathan and Abigail in 1666, but by the time their son was born, Swift’s father had died.</p><p> One of Swift’s uncles, Godwin, a successful lawyer and Attorney General for the Palatinate in Tipperary, stepped in immediately to support the widow Abigail, and ensured that the young Jonathan would enjoy some kind of paternal security. He also assumed educational responsibility for the boy, sending him to Kilkenny College at the age of six, while Abigail and her daughter returned to relatives in Leicester. Established on the Duke of Ormonde’s estate, Kilkenny College was reputedly the best grammar school of its kind in Ireland, and Swift boarded here until he was fifteen. In 1682, he returned to Dublin and entered Trinity College, whose provost, Narcissus Marsh, would later establish his famous library in the shadow of St Patrick's Cathedral. An undistinguished scholar, Swift left Trinity College after seven years of undergraduate study with no clear idea about a career. Political instability must have intensified his personal sense of uncertainty: Ireland seemed to be preparing itself for war between the armies of King James II and William of Orange. Many of the staff and students at Trinity took the boat for England, where they felt safer, and from where they could observe the fate of the rebellion in Ireland. Swift joined the exodus, travelling across to stay with his mother in the city of Leicester.</p><p> After spending a few months with his mother, Swift travelled down to Oxford, where he applied for his MA at Hart Hall, and shortly thereafter obtained his first proper job, a post that was to have momentous implications for his literary career. He was appointed private secretary to Sir William Temple, a retired statesman and one of England's most distinguished and experienced diplomats. Temple's estate was at Moor Park, near Farnham in Surrey, where the twenty-one-year-old Swift arrived in the summer of 1689, and where he would remain, aside from two intervals of absence in Ireland, for the next ten years. On 5 November 1689, Temple was part of an official delegation that welcomed William of Orange on his landing at Torbay in England.</p> At Moor Park, Swift was introduced to a young girl called Esther Johnson, the eight-year-old daughter of one of Temple's housekeepers, and to Rebecca Dingley, a waiting-woman in the household. Esther Johnson would become Swift's closest, most inspirational friend in later years, celebrated by him as “Stella” in verse and prose. Both women would eventually follow him back to Ireland and would spend the rest of their days there.</p><p> After five years’ service to Sir William Temple, Swift decided to enter the priesthood. When he returned to Dublin, in the spring of 1694, he found that the process of ordination would be both bureaucratic and slightly embarrassing. Narcissus Marsh, now Archbishop of Dublin, demanded that Swift obtain a detailed personal reference from Temple. Swift posted a dignified but nervous request to his former employer, apologising for the urgency of the reference, and explaining that since “above half the Clergy in this Town” were younger than him, he needed a respectable recommendation. At the age of twenty-six, swift was being made to feel guilty for being so tardy about settling into a proper career. Temple complied with welcome alacrity. On 25 October 1694, Swift was ordained deacon; three months later, on 13 January 1695, he was ordained a priest by William Moreton, Bishop of Kildare, in Dublin’s Christ Church Cathedral.</p><p> Swift did not have to wait long for his first appointment, but its location could hardly have been more disappointing. Lord Capel, one of the three Irish Lord Justices, directed the young clergyman to the prebend of Kilroot, just outside Carrickfergus in County Antrim. For Swift this must have seemed like a punishment rather than a preferment. His patent to Kilroot was dated 28 January 1695, and he arrived in this northern parish in March. On 28 April, he was officially installed in Lisburn, the cathedral town of the diocese of Connor, where he preached and read divine service.</p><p><hr> Read more about the early career of Jonathan Swift in the <a href="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/literature/jonathan_swift_ireland_02.htm"><b>second part</b></a> of this biographical journey, extracted from Joseph McMinn's '<b>Jonathan's Travels</b>'.<hr></p><p><br> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862814537/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><img src="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/covmed4537.gif" Height=150 ALIGN=LEFT></a>From the Appletree Press title: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862814537/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><I>Jonathan's Travels</I></a>, by Joseph McMinn. For more information on the book, click <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/4537.htm">here</a>.<br> Also from Appletree: <A href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862817595/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"><I>Famous Irish Lives</I></a>, <A href="http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0862817595/applepress03-20/ref=nosim">click here to buy</A> or <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/7595.htm">here</A> for more information & <A href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0862815487/applepress03-20/ref=nosim"> <I>Irish Museums and Heritage Centres</I></a>, click <A href="http://www.appletree.ie/cat/books/5487.htm">here</A> for more information.<P></P> </TD> <TD width="180" align="RIGHT" valign="TOP"> <script type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script></TD> </TR> </TABLE> <P> [ <A HREF="#top">Back to Top</A> ]<P><FONT SIZE=2>All Material © 1999-2005 Irelandseye.com and contributors</FONT><BR><BR clear=all></FONT></TD> </TR> <TR><TD BGCOLOR="#336699" width=120 valign=bottom><IMG SRC="/newmedia/ssi/bluwaves.jpg" WIDTH=120 HEIGHT=145 ALIGN=TOP></TD> <TD><IMG SRC="/Images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=20 HEIGHT=2 ALIGN=TOP></TD> </TR> <TR><TD colspan=5 BGCOLOR="#336699" align=right><IMG SRC="/Images/spacer.gif" WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=1 ALIGN=TOP></TD> </TR></TABLE> <BR><CENTER><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="ARIAL, HELVETICA">[ <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com">Home</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/features/index.shtm">Features</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/index.shtm">Culture</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/history/index.shtm">History</A> | <A HREF="http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/travel/index.shtm">Travel</A> ]</FONT></CENTER> </body> </html> </body> </html>