1667 Born in Hoey’s Court, Dublin, on 30 November to Abigail Swift (née Erick), seven months after the death of his father, Jonathan Swift.
1673 Sent to Kilkenny Grammar School (remains there until 1682).
1682 Enters Trinity College, Dublin.
1685 Death of Charles II (6 Feb.); accession of his Roman Catholic brother, James II.
1686 Swift obtains BA degree, speciali gratia (‘by special grace’); continues at Trinity College.
1688 The ‘Glorious Revolution’: accession to the throne of William of Orange (as William III) and his wife (as Mary II); James II flees to France.
1688–9 Swift leaves for England to escape the civil strife following James II’s arrival in Ireland.
1689 Enters household of Sir William Temple at Moor Park in Surrey, where he first meets Esther Johnson (‘Stella’), then eight years old.
1690 Returns to Ireland; William III defeats James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1 July).
1691 Swift returns to Moor Park to work as Temple’s secretary; the Treaty of Limerick (3 Oct.) ends the civil strife in Ireland after the defeat of the Jacobite army.
1692 Swift receives MA degree from Hart Hall, Oxford University; publishes ‘Ode to the Athenian Society’, his first work to appear in print.
1694 Returns to Ireland and is ordained deacon (28 Oct.); death of Queen Mary (28 Dec.)
1695 Swift is ordained priest (13 Jan.) and appointed to the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast; enactment of first of the Penal Laws in Ireland.
1696 Swift returns to Moor Park (June), where over the next three years he contributes to the Ancients–Moderns controversy by writing The Battel of the Books and (most of) A Tale of a Tub.
1699 Death of Temple (27 Jan.); Swift returns to Ireland as chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, Lord Justice of Ireland; passage of Woollen Act restricting Irish trade.
1700 Swift is presented to the church livings of Laracor, Rathbeggan and Agher (Feb.); installed as prebendary of St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin (22 Oct.); death of John Dryden (1 May).
1701 Swift returns to England; publishes A Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions in Athens and Rome, defending several impeached Whig statesmen; Esther Johnson moves to Dublin, accompanied by Rebecca Dingley; death of James II (16 Sept.).
1702 Swift receives Doctor of Divinity degree at Trinity College (16 Feb.); English Parliament declares war on France; death of William III (8 Mar.) and accession of Queen Anne.
1704 Publication of the volume containing A Tale of a Tub, The Battel of the Books and The Mechanical Operation of the Spirit; the Test Act is passed in Ireland.
1707 Swift arrives in London in November with commission from the Church of Ireland to solicit remission of the ‘First Fruits’ from Queen Anne, remaining for a year and a half; the Union of England and Scotland prompts The Story of the Injured Lady (published posthumously).
1708–9 Swift develops close ties with Addison, Steele and other prominent writers and wits; publishes The Bickerstaff Papers and several tracts related to the Church; writes An Argument against Abolishing Christianity (published in 1711); contributes to Steele’s Tatler with ‘A Description of the Morning’; returns to Ireland (June 1709).
1710 Returns to London (Sept.) and joins forces with the new Tory ministry (led by Robert Harley and Henry St John), on whose behalf he writes partisan essays for The Examiner (from 2 Nov. until 14 June 1711); starts the Journal to Stella on 2 September (runs to 6 June 1713); writes ‘A Description of a City Shower’ for The Tatler; publication of the fifth edition of A Tale of a Tub, with the ‘Apology’ added.
1711 Swift publishes his Miscellanies in Prose and Verse; begins his involvement with Esther Vanhomrigh (‘Vanessa’); circulates his highly effective pro-peace polemic, The Conduct of the Allies (Nov.); Duke of Marlborough dismissed (Dec.); Addison’s and Steele’s The Spectator appears on 1 March (runs to 6 Dec. 1712; briefly revived in 1714); Harley made Earl of Oxford.
1713 Swift’s membership (with Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot and Parnell) in the Scriblerus Club; his attacks on Steele’s Whig journalism; Treaty of Peace with France, ending the War of the Spanish Succession, signed at Utrecht (11 Apr.), celebrated by Pope in Windsor-Forest; Swift installed as Dean of St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin (13 June); returns to London (9 Sept.).
1714 Collapse of Tory ministry (July); death of Queen Anne (1 Aug.) and accession of the Hanoverian George I; Swift has price placed on his head for writing The Public Spirit of the Whigs; leaves for Dublin (16 Aug.) to assume his new post; personal and political tensions between Swift and his ‘boss’ William King, Archbishop of Dublin (later eased through their mutual exertions on behalf of the ‘Irish interest’).
1715 Former Tory ministers impeached; Bolingbroke flees to France to join the Pretender and Oxford is imprisoned in the Tower (released in 1717); Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland; death of Louis XIV of France (1 Sept.).
1720 Publication of Swift’s A Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture (May), shortly after passage of the Declaratory Act, strengthening Britain’s legislative power over Ireland; prosecution of the printer; South Sea Bubble (Sept.).
1721 Robert Walpole appointed First Lord of the Treasury and begins his de-facto tenure as Prime Minister of Britain (until 1742); he will become a target of Swift’s satire and wrath throughout the 1720s.
1722 William Wood receives royal patent to coin copper halfpence for Ireland (July); opposition to the patent begins to emerge among all segments of the Irish population.
1723 Swift embarks on a four-month tour of southern Ireland following the death of Esther Vanhomrigh at her Celbridge home near Dublin (2 June).
1724 Writes The Drapier’s Letters attacking Wood’s patent; Carteret arrives in Dublin as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland (Oct.); reward of £300 (unclaimed) offered for discovery of the Drapier; Harding jailed and prosecuted for printing Drapier’s Letter IV (Nov.); Swift attains hero status as the ‘Hibernian Patriot’; death of Earl of Oxford (21 May).
1725 Wood’s patent surrendered (Aug.); Swift works on manuscript of Gulliver’s Travels during a five-month visit to Sheridan in Co. Cavan (late Apr. to early Oct.).
1726 Visits England (Mar.–Aug.); stays with Pope at Twickenham; has disastrous meeting with Walpole to discuss the Irish situation; Gulliver’s Travels published in London (28 Oct.) and becomes an instant sensation, with two Dublin editions following shortly thereafter.
1727 Swift’s final visit to England (Apr.–Sept.); returns to Dublin to a seriously ailing Esther Johnson via a trip recorded in the Holyhead Journal; death of George I (11 June) and accession of George II; onset of a severe famine in Ireland.
1728 Death of Esther Johnson (28 Jan.); Swift publishes A Short View of the State of Ireland (Mar.) and writes other Irish tracts on the worsening conditions in the country; collaborates with Sheridan on the periodical, The Intelligencer (lasts for one year, beginning 11 May); opening of Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera in London; publication of Pope’s The Dunciad (3-canto version).
1729 Publication of A Modest Proposal (Oct.); death of Archbishop King (8 May).
1731 Swift writes Verses on the Death of Dr Swift (published in 1739).
1732 Publication of The Lady’s Dressing Room, one of his most popular poems during his lifetime and a prime example of his so-called ‘excremental’ poems; death of Gay (4 Dec.).
1735 Publication of George Faulkner’s 4-volume Dublin edition of Swift’s Works.
1736 Publication of the poem A Character… of the Legion Club, Swift’s scathing satire on the Irish House of Commons.
1738 Publication of Swift’s Polite Conversation; death of Sheridan (10 Oct.).
1740 Swift makes his last will (3 May), directing that the bulk of his estate be used for the construction of St Patrick’s Hospital; severe weather results in widespread disease and famine throughout Ireland.
1742 Swift declared ‘of unsound mind and memory’ (17 Aug.) and delivered to the care of guardians; Walpole forced to resign (1 Feb.); Handel in Dublin oversees the first performance of his Messiah (13 Apr.); publication of Pope’s New Dunciad (Book IV).
1744 Death of Pope (30 May).
1745 Death of Swift (19 Oct.); burial in St Patrick’s cathedral, beneath the famous epitaph he himself composed; publication of his unfinished Directions to Servants; death of Walpole (18 Mar.); the final, abortive Jacobite uprising in Britain, led by the ‘Young Pretender’.