This chapter provides an overview of the Irish literary scene during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. There was a growing demand for literature of all kinds and the work of local poets, songwriters, playwrights, and pamphleteers appeared alongside printed material imported from London; local verses and satires circulated widely in manuscript. As a boy, Swift was immersed in this material and in later life he contributed to it. The easy availability of books and pamphlets made Dublin, at least for its better-educated and more affluent citizens, an attractive place to live.