Early Life Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was the second child and only son of Jonathan Swift (1640-1667) and his wife Abigail Erick (or Herrick), of Frisby on the Wreake.[3] His father, originally from Goodrich, Herefordshire, accompanied his brothers to Ireland to seek his fortune in law after their royalist father's estate was ruined during the English Civil War. Swift's father died in Dublin approximately 7 months before her birth and her mother returned to England. He was placed in the care of his influential uncle, Godwin, a close friend and confidant of Sir John Temple, whose son later employed Swift as his secretary. Swift's family had several interesting literary connections: her grandmother, Elizabeth (Dryden) Swift, was the niece of Sir Erasmus Dryden, grandfather of the poet John Dryden. The same grandmother's aunt, Katherine (Throckmorton) Dryden, was a first cousin of Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Raleigh. His great-great-grandmother, Margaret (Godwin) Swift, was the sister of Francis Godwin, author of The Man in the Moone which influenced parts of Swift's Gulliver's Travels. His uncle, Thomas Swift, married a daughter of the poet and playwright Sir William Davenant, godson of William Shakespeare. His uncle Godwin Swift (1628–1695), a benefactor, took primary responsibility for young Jonathan, sending him and one of his cousins ​​to Kilkenny College (also attended by the philosopher George Berkeley).[7] In 1682, financed by Godwin's son Willoughby, he attended the University of Dublin (Trinity College, Dublin), from which he received his BA in 1686, and developed his friendship with William Congreve. Swift was studying for his master's degree when political unrest in Ireland surrounding the newspaper business landed him the lesser position of secretary and chaplain to the Earl of Berkeley, one of Ireland's Lord Justices. . However, when he arrived in Ireland he found that the position of secretary had already been given to another. He soon obtained the subsistence of Laracor, Agher and Rathbeggan, as well as the prebend of Dunlavin in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. At Laracor, just over 4 miles (7.5 km) from Summerhill, County Meath, and twenty miles (32 km) from Dublin, Swift ministered to a congregation of around fifteen people and had leisure abundant to cultivate his garden, build a canal (in the Dutch fashion of Moor Park), plant willows and rebuild the presbytery. As chaplain to Lord Berkeley he spent much of his time in Dublin and visited London frequently over the next ten years. In 1701, Swift anonymously published a political pamphlet, A Discourse on the Contests a.