The Image of Ireland plate 1
The Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne is a book by John Derricke, an English follower of Sir Henry Sidney, published in 1581.
The author was probably the same John Derick who was appointed collector of custom duty on wine imported into Ireland in 1569, when Sidney was granted the right to collect this duty by the Irish parliament. He dedicated his book to Sidney, signing the dedication at Dublin on 16 June 1578. The engraving of the plates from Derricke's drawings would probably have been done after he returned to England with Sidney that same year. Two of the plates are signed "ID", presumably Derricke himself, and four by "FD", perhaps a member of his family.
The book is a strong defence of Sidney's deputyship and his victories over the Irish. It begins with a long poem describing Ireland as an almost mythical land ripe to be conquered, and depicting the Irish "woodkarne", landless Irish guerrilla fighters who emerged from their mountain and forest retreats to plunder English settlements.
There follows a sequence of twelve double-page woodcut illustrations with accompanying verse narration, telling the story of the subjugation of the Irish woodkarne rebels by Sir Henry Sydney, ending with the submission of Turlough Luineach Ó Neill, king of Tyrone, in 1578.
There is only one surviving complete copy, including all twelve woodcuts, held in Edinburgh University Library.
References
- Woodcuts from The Image of Irelande, Edinburgh University Library
- The Image of Irelande, downloadable in multiple formats from Archive.org
- Richard Marsh's explanation of plate 3
- Andrew Hadfield, "Derricke, John (fl. 1578–1581)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, online edn, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004, accessed 27 July 2010