Oh yes, John Derricke most definitely wrote the poem, but it's often stated he did the engravings, without any substantial evidence. Derricke was a customs officer and in the employ of Sir Henry Sidney, who led the campaign against the Irish Woodkerne. Derricke, as you can read, was very derogatory to the Irish, and praises Percy, even dedicting the book to him.
He took the book to John Daye for publication. Daye was, by modern day standards, a religious propagandist. He had previously been imprisoned for producing Protestant literature when all other Protestant printers had fled to the Continent. Come the Reformation, he was released, and started producing large volumes of Protestant literature. If you were going to produce a work of anti-Catholic bias, such as Images of Ireland, Daye would be a likely printer.
Day worked within the Dutch Protestant community in London, who had supported him prior to the Reformation, mainly through the Duchess of Suffolk, who was active in this group. The Duchess was a founder of the Dutch
Stranger Church and Daye employed his Dutch engravers through this connection.
There are 20th century sources out there that say that John Derricke was the engraver, but at no contemporary point can I find Derricke listed as such. Some sources say this can be gathered because 2 of the Plates are initialled
I.D. but this does not take into account that John Daye used an I to spell his name,
Iohn Daye, as you can
see here, bottom left. 4 of the other plates are clearly initialled F.D, so neither John Derricke nor Iohn Daye can be attributed as artist of these. It's more likely to have been an employee of Daye's, even one of his
26 children
, some of whom went on to work for him.
The plates are also professionially made, very high quality for their time, they are not the work of an amateur. Derricke was a customs officer by trade, not an engraver/printer. Also, if you look at John Daye's other works, such as The Cosmographical Glasse, as well as looking like the work of the same engraver of Images of Ireland, a lot of the engravings have the
exact same I.D initials as the Images of Ireland artists' signature. This has led me to believe that the plates marked I.D were probably engraved by John Daye, not John Derricke.
Originally Posted by MacSpadger
Oh yes, John Derricke most definitely wrote the poem, but it's often stated he did the engravings, without any substantial evidence. Derricke was a customs officer and in the employ of Sir Henry Sidney, who led the campaign against the Irish Woodkerne. Derricke, as you can read, was very derogatory to the Irish, and praises Percy, even dedicting the book to him.
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