A Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift In very simple terms, A Modest Proposal is a satire of the social and economic events in Ireland. It was written in the early eighteenth century in an attempt to shame England and to shock Ireland. Jonathan Swift lived in an Ireland which was a colony, politically, militarily, and economically dependent on England. England was happy to keep things as they were to keep Ireland weak. The result was an overpopulated and poor Ireland. Swift offers a solution for the problems of Ireland in a practical manner. Through his ironic prose, Swift suggests one solution for both the problem of overpopulation and the growing numbers of starving p