David Rooney author page

David Rooney biography

David Rooney is an Irish illustrator and author whose work is mainly produced in scraperboard, an engraving technique made by scratching black ink from a chalk-coated surface to reveal the white underneath. His scraperboard images are then scanned and coloured digitally.

Rooney has worked on cultural, museum and documentary projects, including the BBC series The Story of Ireland, Titanic Experience and King John’s Castle. His portfolio includes illustrations for the Royal Irish Academy book 1916 Portraits and Lives, which featured 40 portraits of figures connected with the Easter Rising. The original scraperboards were acquired by the Office of Public Works for the State and exhibited at Kilmainham Gaol during the centenary commemorations.

His children’s nonfiction book The Story of the Great Irish Famine was published by Gill Books in 2024. Rooney wrote and illustrated the 32-page hardback, which uses scraperboard artwork to present episodes from the Great Irish Famine, including crop failure, eviction, workhouses, soup kitchens, famine roads and emigration.

Rooney illustrated Eilish Fisher’s verse novel The Waters and the Wild, published by Puffin in September 2025. The book is listed for readers aged 10 and above and follows Rowan after the death of her father, as she moves from Arizona to Ireland and encounters a walled town shaped by grief, folklore and memory.

The Story of the Great Irish Famine was selected by Children’s Books Ireland as an Irish-published nonfiction title for readers aged 10 to young adult.