Swift's Modest Proposal
Once the Dean of St Patrick, Jonathan Swift is famous for his works 'Gullivers Travels' and 'Tale of a Tub', and had a fascinating life in Dublin. His love life remains the subject of great debate to this day. Meanwhile, he wrote vicious satires such as this tale here - A Modest Proposal - which came up with a radical and absurd solution to the poverty he saw around him. Told by Mark Lawler of the Liberties Heritage Project.
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Throughout his life Swift suffered from fits of dizziness and vertigo, which he feared was the symptom of mental decline. In his final years, after suffering a stroke, he was unable to speak and spurned company, despite his incredible popularity. Later examination of his skull has revealed he most probably suffered from Meniére's disease, a disorder of the inner ear which was often mistaken for madness. Swift coined a number of popular phrases which are used to this day. Gulliver's Travels gives us a 'Yahoo', 'Lillipudian' and he also first used the phrase 'bubble' to describe overspeculation in property. Gullivers Travels also gives us 'Big-Endian' and Little-Endian', both of which are used in computer architecture to describe the layout of memory bytes.
