I hasten to say that I selected these examples, from others I could have chosen, because I know that each paper was well regarded by those who heard it \u2013 and, of course, the three papers did appeal to scholars with a particular interest in Swift\u2019s philosophy or the Established Church at the end of Queen Anne\u2019s reign or and bibliography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dublin Swift Festival has a very different emphasis. It will take place in the Liberties, home to Swift for many years. St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral will be illuminated; there will films; creative writing classes including a session on travel writing; ballads from Swift\u2019s Dublin; and the opportunity to sit down in the cathedral itself to enjoy a candlelit dinner featuring authentic seventeenth-century dishes including buttered and seasoned eel; chicken fricassee; pickled cucumbers and peese porridge: all, alas, at a decidedly twenty-first century price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is entirely appropriate that Swift should be celebrated in such different ways in this anniversary year \u2013 and that he should be celebrated not only in Dublin but throughout Ireland, not least in Armagh, a location with which Swift had particular associations through his friendship with the Acheson family of Market Hill. No other Irish author of Swift\u2019s time \u2013 and few authors of any time, anywhere \u2013 can boast a literary reputation as a major writer of world stature and retain a continuing presence in popular local and international consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That reputation and the fact that Swift\u2019s name is known to many who have read little if anything of what he wrote is due, above all, to his single most famous work: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World<\/em> or, as it quickly became known at home and later, in many remote nations of the world, Gulliver\u2019s Travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em> is, beyond doubt, the most widely known work ever written by an Irish author or written in Ireland itself. First published in 1726, it has never been out of print, and has appeared in countless editions, sometimes complete, more often abridged and bowdlerized. Gulliver\u2019s Travels<\/em> has been, regarded as a children\u2019s book (mistakenly so by some, but not by children) and translated into dozens of languages. It has been transposed for the stage, television and radio and adapted in a number of film versions, beginning as early as 1902 with Georges M\u00e9li\u00e8s\u2019s Le voyage de Gulliver \u00e0 Lilliput et chez les g\u00e9ants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n More recent versions feature actors as well known as Richard Harris, Ted Danson and Jack Black. Less familar, perhaps, is the fact that Walt Disney turned Swift\u2019s masterpiece into a vehicle for his own most famous creation, Mickey Mouse, in the 1934 cartoon, Gulliver Mickey<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/demo.brandingbay.com\/ARL\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Picture2.jpg\")
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