Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland on November 30, 1667. His father died before he was born so an arrangement was made for him to live with his relatives, while his mother went back to England. He attended Trinity College in Dublin in 1686, and went job hunting in England.
He eventually became a secretary for Sir William Temple, an important statesman who helped arrange the marriage of future British monarchs William and Mary. It was through Sir William that Swift met Esther Johnson and became her tutor.
When Sir William died, Swift returned to England and worked a variety of odd jobs, writing his developing satirical works. He became quite popular for his writings.

In the early 1700's an almanac printer named John Partridge challenged his readers to predict a prophecy better than he could. Partridge said many slanderous things about the Catholic Church and Swift took a stand, and under the fake name of Isaac Bickerstaff, he prophecied that Partridge would "infallibly die upon the 29th of March next, about eleven at Night, of a raging fever."
Then on March 29th, Swift, under yet another name, announced that the prophecy had come true. Partridge loudly objected that he was indeed still alive, but no one believed him, and he was even removed from the list of registered citizens.

In 1726 Jonathan Swift published his first work of prose, Gulliver's Travels. Although considered a children's story, a reader who knows Swift's true satirical nature can compare Gulliver's stories with that of the current events of the day and long term problems in society.
In 1729 he published "A Modest Proposal," a deeply satirical piece on the troubles of Ireland's poor and starving citizens. In this work, a narrator explicitly describes how using Irish babies and children for food and clothing will fix society, and makes an underlying statement on the Age of Reason vs. human morals. Other notable works of his include the Tale of A Tub," A journal to Stella", The Battle of the Books, The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit., The Drapier Letters, and "The Lady's Dressing Room. With Addison and Steele he wrote Bickerstaff Papers and An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and wrote with Pope the Miscellanies(3).

Swift's criticism of the English government was not isolated to situations with the Irish. Although he was a lifelong Whig, as the gap between the Whigs and the Church grew, Swift launched a series of pamphlets in 1708 that attacked the Whigs. By 1710, he had switched over the Tories and took over The Examiner, a Tory paper. With the help of the influence of The Examiner as well as a couple pamphlets, Swift turned the English public against the "Whig" War of Spanish Succession. (2)

In 1735 Swift developed a disease called Menieres disease, which caused dizziness and nausea. He had a paralytic stroke in 1738.(3) Jonathan Swift died on October 19, 1745 at the ripe old age of 78. Even as he grew senile he maintained his sense of humor and his sharp sarcastic view on society. His last will and testament provided money to open a Dublin hospital for "ideots and lunaticks" because "no nation wanted it so much." The translation of the epithaph he wrote for himself in Latin is as follows:
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty(3)

Swift was a clergyman in the Church of Ireland, which was the Irish branch of the Anglican Church. Swift was very defensive of his religion and the prosecution it received from Roman Catholicism (4).

Some of the content of Swift's works wast written under an alias:M.B., Drapier. One such piecs appears below, called Draiper's HIll
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(1) http://incompetech.com/authors/swift/
(2) http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/swift.htm
(3)http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/religion1.html
(4) http://www.victorianweb.org/previctorian/swift/religion1.html
(5)http://www.gosford.co.uk/swift.html#glass