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Welcome to the Kilkenny International Swift Society website. The society aims to promote contemporary social and political commentary through poetical satire in the spirit of Jonathan Swift.

NEWS

NEW SATIRE COMPETITION AND FESTIVAL
by 'The Boyne Writers Group'
to commemorate Jonathan Swift

Satire Competition
Prizes: First prize €500, 2nd €300, 3rd €200.

for satirical writing

Choice of two subjects:
(1) The Lisbon Treaty referendum – a Modest Proposal
(2) Global Warming – a Lot of Hot Air

Details and competition rules at www.boynewriters.com/swift.html,

The Trim Swift Festival takes place in Trim, County Meath, over the June bank holiday weekend, Thursday 29th May to Sunday 1st June. See www.trimswiftfestival.com

QUERIES & COMMENTS
Idea on Origin of the term 'Yahoo' from reader. See the submissions page. If you have a comment please reply to geninfo@swiftsociety.com or directly to the reader.

 

UPCOMING CONFERENCES:

The British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

38th Annual Conference
Tuesday 6th -Thursday 8th January 2009 at St. Hugh's College, Oxford

Call for Papers

The British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

Postgraduate Conference
Eighteenth-Century Identities
27th and 28th June 2008

Call for Papers


Fundamentalism(s) and Literature
École Normale Supérieure, Lyon, France - 29-30 May 2008

Other Conferences (Listed by BSECS)

 

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Associations/Societies:

International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures
British Association of Irish Studies
International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society
British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies

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  • See Swift's Complete Works Prose and Poetry available for download as ebooks from this site

SITE UPDATE: This website will be updated in the coming weeks. The new version will allow you to post your queries and comments to the site's wide audience.

Epitaph of Swift: "The body of Jonathan Swift, Doctor of Sacred Theology, dean of this cathedral church, is buried here, where fierce indignation can no more lacerate his heart. Go, traveler, and imitate, if you can, one who strived with all his strength to champion liberty"

SPONSORS
We would like to sincerely thank our sponsors, including the Kilkenny County Council for their support of the 2007 Swift Satire Poetry Competition.

If any other sponsors would like to support the competition please contact geninfo@swiftsociety.com

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ON THE FIVE SENSES

All of us in one you'll find,
Brethren of a wondrous kind;
Yet among us all no brother
Knows one tittle of the other;
We in frequent councils are,
And our marks of things declare,
Where, to us unknown, a clerk
Sits, and takes them in the dark.
He's the register of all
In our ken, both great and small;
By us forms his laws and rules,
He's our master, we his tools;
Yet we can with greatest ease
Turn and wind him where we please.
One of us alone can sleep,
Yet no watch the rest will keep,
But the moment that he closes,
Every brother else reposes.
If wine's brought or victuals drest,
One enjoys them for the rest.
Pierce us all with wounding steel,
One for all of us will feel.
Though ten thousand cannons roar,
A
dd to them ten thousand more,
Yet but one of us is found
Who regards the dreadful sound.
Do what is not fit to tell,
There's but one of us can smell.

 


Swift
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.


  Visitors since Jan 2004