About two hundred years ago Swift owned a piece of ground, enclosed by a wall twelve feet high, and situated near Saint Kevin's Port, not far from the Deanery of Saint Patrick's. This garden, which was known as the "vineyard", was "robbed in open day of most of the wall fruit, which were winter pears and grapes of the best kind," and, in a contemporary Dublin newspaper, the Dean offered a reward of two guineas to any person "who shall discover the said thief, so that the said thief or robber may be convicted of the said theft". Before this raid Swift had in his employment as caretaker of the "vineyard" a man named Matthew Swan, who, he states in his notice, "was vehemently suspected as guilty of the said robbery". He concludes by saying that Swan "hath a very ill countenance."
The Irish Times, May 29th, 1930.