"A Modest Proposal" grows out of Swift's furious indignation, his disgust with English oppression, and his frustrations with Ireland's poor. This, from an Englishman, is very surprising. Although, he too, was not all too fond of the Irish people, he tried to help them. Swift viewed his country as being cruel and belligerent to the Irish people.
Swift tried to help Ireland and it's people in many ways. However, the way that stands out greatest, is his satire, "A Modest Proposal." According to Swift, we should be cannibalistic and eat the babies of the poverty stricken. As we all know, that is not how to deal with poverty. There isn't a way to deal with poverty. All that one can do, is to have faith. Swift's view is shown in a song by U2, "Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away/ How long. How long must we sing this song?/ How long? How long.".
Poverty in Ireland was a big part in why there is oppression. England got a notion that Ireland was weak. They got this notion because of the potato famine. England figured that because Ireland couldn't hold their country together that England would come in and "help." They helped all right. That's another contribution to the poverty of Ireland. They spent most of their money trying to fight England. Money went to guns, ammunition, war supplies. Swift hated the oppression, and so did others. There's an anonymous poem which was written by a soldier who murdered an Irishman under orders. "The man was all shot through that came today into the barracks square/ And a soldier I, I am not proud to say that we killed him there." The poem was written about a martyr, James Connolly. There are many factors of poverty in Ireland. The war effort, the potato famine, diseases, many factors.
Unbelievably, present Ireland is in much better shape than it used to be. There aren't people roaming the streets with semi-automatic weapons, people aren't on the street begging.
