Who was Jonathan Swift's audience in "A Modest Proposal?"

Swift's pamphlet addressed a few intended audiences: both the English who were buying up all the land in Ireland, and the Irish themselves.  By the time he wrote "A Modest Proposal," the wealthy English had purchased around 90% of the land in Ireland, raising the rents, making it more difficult for poor Irish farmers to both pay the rent for the land they worked and feed and clothe their families.  Irish families were also characteristically...

Swift's pamphlet addressed a few intended audiences: both the English who were buying up all the land in Ireland, and the Irish themselves.  By the time he wrote "A Modest Proposal," the wealthy English had purchased around 90% of the land in Ireland, raising the rents, making it more difficult for poor Irish farmers to both pay the rent for the land they worked and feed and clothe their families.  Irish families were also characteristically large, making the challenge of caring for them even greater; so the number of beggars increased.  English Parliament had even passed laws that limited the rights of the Irish in their own country.  Swift certainly means to attack the practices by which the English figuratively "devoured" the Irish by suggesting that they might as well go ahead and literally devour them too.

However, Swift also addressed the Irish who allowed such a situation to transpire without taking adequate steps to preserve themselves.  He thought they hadn't done enough to stand up to the English before it became too late.  In other words, he also blames the Irish for their seeming complicity with their own subjugation.