How exciting to have a new play by the brilliant Edna O’Brien on the @abbeytheatredublin stage at the moment! Joyce’s Women is part of @dublintheatrefestival_ This portrait of O’Brien by Mandy O’Neill is in our national portrait collection, and is currently on display in Room 23. It was commissioned as part of the Zurich Portrait Prize which @photomando7 won in 2018. She describes the moment she captured the portrait, saying: "Edna moved incrementally in the natural light, and I told her when I would press the shutter. It was at this point that I noticed she clenched her fists and closed her eyes to ready herself for the picture to be taken. She told me that this was her way of composing herself. As I was taking this set of images there was a sudden change in the light, her face lit up for a moment as she closed and opened her eyes and I knew at that moment that something magical had happened." ✨ 📷: Mandy O'Neill, Edna O’Brien (b.1930), author, poet, memoirist, 2020. #NationalGalleryIRL #EdnaOBrien #ZurichPortraitPrize #IrishArt #irishWriters #IrishTheatre