Johnathan Swift"s satirical essay " A Modest Proposal For preventing the Children of Poor People From being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and For making them Beneficial to the Publick ", first published anonymously in 1729, is generally acknowledged to be a classic example of the use of irony.Critical thinking is essential for irony to work. If we take "irony" to mean, at a basic level, "saying one thing but...