Swift was born in Ireland in 1667 and was raised by his uncle (his father died before Swift was born, and his mother left him to return to England). He got a good education and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin, with a BA in 1686 (yes, he was 19 years old--he started college at 14). He took a job as secretary to Sir William Temple, a prominent Whig politician, though he also continued to pursue his religious vocation, serving as parson in the protestant Church of Ireland for a year. After Temple died in 1699, Swift attached himself to the Earl of Berkeley and continued to serve the church in Ireland. He was also in the process of developing his satirical techniques, publishing A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books in 1704. His satiric ability was first used in support of the Whig party, but he later switched his allegiance to the Tory party when they achieved the parliamentary majority in 1710. Swift’s switch to the Tory party was based primarily on religious grounds--he thought the Whigs tended too much toward the Puritan side, and also resented their support of the continued exploitation of Ireland. 

As a Tory, Swift supported the government of Oxford and Bolingbroke, serving as editor of the Tory paper The Examiner. He especially supported the Peace of Utrecht (1713), which settled the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13). Swift became well-known and relatively powerful, and it was at this time that he joined the "Martin Scriblerus" club with Pope, Arbuthnot, and Gay. However, after the Peace of Utrecht the Tory leader, Henry St. John Bolingbroke, ended up losing the support of Queen Anne, partly because of the backlash at the "easy" terms of the Peace of Utrecht and partly because of his waffling on his decision of who to support for the succession (whether the "Old Pretender" or the Hanoverians). In July of 1714, Bolingbroke was forced out of office; in September, 1714, Anne died and George I took the throne. Bolingbroke fled to France and associated himself with the Old Pretender. George I clearly favored the Whigs (since the Tories were more closely associated with the Jacobites), and eventually Robert Walpole became his prime minister (1721-42).

Swift, meanwhile, went back to Ireland in 1713, where he became a spokesman for Irish causes and continued his satiric writings. He published Drapier’s Letters in 1724, for which the Whig government put a price on his head. In 1726 Swift published Gulliver’s Travels and published "A Modest Proposal" in 1729.

Gulliver's Travels, Book I

Gulliver's Travels, Book IV

"A Modest Proposal"