1916: Lives In The Balance

When the Royal Irish Academy invited me to illustrate 42 historical figures for 1916 Portraits and Live, I had no idea how complex my relationship with the subject matter was.
Working on the first portraits, I soon discovered I harboured prejudice towards my subject. My formative teenage years were spent in Eyrecourt, Co. Galway, at the height of the Troubles. My father, at that time a Garda Sergeant, is from Fermanagh. He crossed the border to join the guards, and met my mother, the daughter of a ‘Dev- opposing’ Tuam shopkeeper. I was reared with an aversion, frequently voiced, to the continuation of the armed struggle in the 'spirit of 1916'. So much so that even as an adult, the mere sight of a photograph of Pádraig Pearse would bring those negative feelings to the fore.
As I worked my way through the 42 figures for this book, I had to examine this prejudice.
I began to feel a growing empathy for the subjects. I was surprised to find that I was often touched by the selflessness, the willingness to sacrifice for a greater good, and the idealism, personified in so many of them. It was a time when the kind of men and women I know — artists, musicians and writers — were so motivated to act for an ideal that their own lives seemed comparatively unimportant.
It also struck me that this was a time when military idealism and notions of honourable death in battle were common. Advice from Glen Hansard to read James Stephens’s The Insurrection in Dublin at an early stage gave great, first-hand-account colour to the project, as did being able to dip into the Bureau of Military History’s online witness statements.
My interest in film has always influenced how I work. The way I frame, compose and, most importantly, light a picture is a direct result of a love for cinema. The material I use is scraperboard, an engraving technique in which black ink is scraped away to reveal a white chalk-board beneath. My preference for this technique followed from an interest I developed in linocut printing while studying at the National College of Art and Design.
After I graduated, I used the technique for decades, as a freelance illustrator for the Irish Times and, as readers will know, for Hot Press, reflecting weekly and fortnightly the tumultuous changes in Irish society.
Over the years my work has featured here and abroad in many publications and projects. However, as a book illustrator for The Folio Society in London, my use of the scraperboard technique became more refined and better suited to illustrate historical novels or classic texts. This resulted in recent years in more history or heritage- related projects. In 2010 the BBC commissioned 92 engravings for the five-part television series The Story of Ireland. This work opened up a new avenue for me, which I have been happily mining ever since, with projects as diverse as the Titanic Experience Belfast, King John’s Castle, Limerick, the Lindisfarne Gospels at Durham Cathedral and the Stonehenge visitor centre.
Scraperboard seems particularly suited to history subjects; the process of revealing is in the technique itself. The figures, built up from thin, white-cut lines, emerge from the black-ink darkness. As I scrape away with my surgical scalpel, the sense of bringing the past back to life is often present.
I do prepare a pencil drawing initially, which I trace on to the board, but there is still a revelation in the completion of the artwork. Almost always, there is a surprise in store, as the figure emerges with some unintended idiosyncratic detail or expression that a chance flourish of the blade has created. In such moments it is tempting to feel there is an element of the conduit rather than the creator in the process.
Most of the engraving work is carried out at night. Once I have absorbed enough reference material on a figure it is often a case of removing my analytical presence — getting out of the way, letting the image almost materialise.
The process of researching and creating these portraits has been a most enriching and illuminating one, and has allowed me to ask, and answer, some difficult questions.
It has been a wonderful journey for me, and I hope my work does some justice to the extraordinary lives we have illustrated.

The Royal Irish Academy and the OPW commissioned David Rooney to create 42 original portraits for 1916 Portraits and Lives. The works created by David Rooney will hang in Kilmainham Gaol next year and the book is on sale now. Edited by Lawrence William White and James Quinn, it is published by the Royal Irish Academy and is available in hardback for just €30.