With 2026 marking 300 years since the publication of Gulliver’s Travels, the Service User and Supporters (SUAS) Council at St Patrick’s Mental Health Services is launching a virtual book club based on this celebrated work by St Patrick’s founder, Jonathan Swift.
Names are never just labels. They shape how we are seen; how we are treated; and how we understand ourselves.
In modern life, names and terms are everywhere. They help systems function, organise and communicate quickly. Most are created with good intentions. And yet, the names used in areas like mental health services often arrive before listening does. They can follow people long after the context they were created for has changed.
This month, St Patrick’s Mental Health Services’ (SPMHS) Service Users and Supporters (SUAS) Council is launching their first virtual book club based on Gulliver’s Travels. At first glance, that might seem like an unusual choice. Why use a satirical travel book written 300 years ago to talk about modern mental health services and language?
The short answer is this: Gulliver’s Travels invites us to notice how language may impact people.
Why Gulliver’s Travels?
In 1726, some 20 years before St Patrick’s Hospital was founded at the bequest of Jonathan Swift, the noted author and satirist wrote Gulliver’s Travels. It is often remembered as an adventure story, but Swift wrote it as a sharp satire of power, institutions and human behaviour. Throughout the book, the main character, Gulliver, is repeatedly renamed, measured, categorised and described by systems more powerful than him - often before he is truly listened to or understood.
In every place Gulliver visits:
- He is known first by how he fits the system
- Talked about more than talked with
- Valued for his usefulness or managed for his risk
- Protected ‘for his own good’ while losing control over his own life.
Swift exaggerates these processes to make them more visible. But even 300 years on, many readers resonate with the themes of the novel:
- How people can be defined by systems rather than known as individuals
- How caring intentions can sit alongside loss of autonomy
- How expert language can distance rather than include
- How labels can harden into identities that are difficult to escape.
By the end of the story, Gulliver even begins to see himself through the language used about him; showing how deeply these systems can be internalised.
Chris Miley, SUAS Chair explains, “We are not looking at Gulliver’s Travels for answers or instructions. We’re interested in it because it creates space for recognition, and because recognition is often the beginning of understanding.”
Why now?
28 October 2026 marks the 300-year anniversary of the publication of Gulliver’s Travels. As the service user council of an organisation founded by Jonathan Swift, SUAS sees this anniversary as a natural and meaningful moment to pause and reflect; not to judge the past or rush toward change, but to think more carefully about the present.
One of the questions SUAS is interested in exploring through this Book Club is how systems name people.
Terms like ‘service user’ were introduced with important intentions, including moving away from more passive or medicalised language. But language does not stand still. Over time, words take on new meanings, shaped by how they are used in practice and how they are experienced by the people they describe.
Rather than beginning with the question ‘should we replace the term service user?’, SUAS is deliberately taking a step back to ask a deeper question: “What does naming actually do?”
Why a Book Club?
In a world where services are under pressure, conversations about language often become rushed or polarised. Words can quickly become problems to fix rather than signals pointing to something deeper.
This project intentionally takes a different approach.
The SUAS Book Club is not a campaign, a debate or a decision-making forum. It is a space for shared reflection.
While it is called a Book Club, reading Gulliver’s Travels is not required. Each session will begin with a short, accessible summary of key moments and themes. These are provided in advance and revisited during the session so everyone can take part regardless of familiarity with the text.
The discussion is shaped as much by participants’ own lived experience as by the story itself. The book acts as a shared starting point, not a requirement.
Each session explores a different aspect of naming, language and power, using Gulliver’s Travels as a shared starting point for reflection and discussion. Across six sessions, we will explore themes such as being named by others, the relationship between language and power and how system language can become internalised over time.
Schedule:
- Session 1 – 16 June: Swift, St Patrick's Hospital and Gulliver's World
- Session 2 – 30 June: Lilliput: Being named by others
- Session 3 – 14 July: Brobdingnag: Size, scale and power
- Session 4 – 28 July: Laputa and the Academy: Expert language and distance
- Session 5 – 11 August: Houyhnhnms and Yahoos: What's in a name?
- Session 6 – 25 August: Internalising the name: When system language becomes self-language.
Get involved
The Book Club is open to anyone with an interest in this topic. If you’re interested in being part of this conversation, we’d love you to join us. If you would like to participate in the Book Club, email the Service User Engagement Lead, Siobhan Fitzharris, at email: sfitzharris@stpatricks.ie
First session: Tuesday, 16 June, 2026
Time: 7.00pm – 8.00pm
Where: MS Teams (register here to receive the meeting link.)
You don’t need to read Gulliver’s Travels in advance. Each session will include a short overview of key themes and guided discussion to help you engage with the ideas.