Jonathan Swift’s Last Joke
The Weekend Essay Jonathan Swift’s Last Joke The writer composed his own epitaph. Did it have a secret satirical intent? By May 2, 2026 Illustration by Jan Robert Dünnweller Save this story Khi ta chết, nhớ chôn theo ta 1 tên phê bình. Nguyễn Tuân. In the dying light of a December afternoon in 2018, within the vaulted Gothic interior of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, Rosie Hennigan saw that her husband, David Kenny, was hypnotized by an epitaph. Kenny and Hennigan are a witty, attractive Irish couple. He is a professor of law at Trinity College and she is a novelist. Their conversations often take the form of friendly jousts. Hennigan had suggested the visit because she wanted to learn more about a Tudor artifact in the cathedral, known as the Door of Reconciliation, for a book she was researching. But it was a more recent monument that detained Kenny. Near the south door, he gazed up at a marble plaque bearing the epitaph for Jonathan Swift, the redoubtable noveli...