Originally from Navan in Co. Meath, Sinéad O’Shea is an acclaimed writer, journalist and filmmaker. In 2023, she made waves with her deeply moving (and surprisingly uplifting) documentary, Pray For Us Sinners. A compelling exploration of systemic abuses in Ireland, it touches on everything from the country’s recent history of brutality against women and children to the plight of unmarried mothers and the inconceivable horrors of mother and baby homes. Her latest project—Blue Road: The Edna O'Brien Story—centres on Edna O’Brien, the remarkable Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer who sadly passed away last summer.
The last thing I saw and loved… The Child by the Dardenne brothers. It really shocked and impressed me. I also should mention Downton Abbey as I started watching it in November and watched all six seasons before Christmas. I took it very seriously!
The book I keep coming back to… Country Girls by Edna O’Brien. It’s a masterpiece, funny and incisive.
I find inspiration in… great pieces of art and journalism. Funny stories from friends. My own memories.
My favourite film is… I have two favourites – first is Rocco and His Brothers. I’ve only seen it twice but it’s a very big film. The drama is overwhelming and it’s very beautiful. I also love Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami. It’s very prescient and brilliant.
My career highlight is… I think it was getting my microbudget documentary about Navan, Pray For Our Sinners, into the Toronto Film Festival. I had to edit with no money while pregnant with bad hyperemesis. It often felt hopeless so Toronto came as a big surprise. Having said that, there are many worse hardships when pregnant.
The song I listen to to get in the zone is… I listened to Lana del Rey while cooking lately which felt like a pastiche of one of her songs but I was in a zone, a zone of domesticity which is rare.
The last book I recommended is… at the moment, I recommend A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien to everyone. I think it’s very underrated.
I never leave the house without… my phone, realistically. I try not to forget a tin of Vaseline. I have many of them in rotation.
The piece of work I still think about is… the film My Summer of Love by Pawel Pawlikowski. It feels very personal to me and is so beautiful.
The best advice I’ve ever gotten… I can’t think of any, to be honest. Not much advice is eternal. Prayers might be better.
The art that means the most to me is… Edna O’Brien’s work means a lot to me, it speaks very directly to my experience of growing up in the countryside in a very patriarchal era.
My favourite moment in Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story is… the part that features the short film shot by Edna’s son, Carlo, when he was a teenager. He thought he was making an adaptation of Edna’s book Night but it’s really like a documentary of Edna’s childhood. It’s a very moving sequence towards the end of our film.
The most challenging thing about being in film is… the precarity.
After I wrap on a project, I… double child-mind.
If I wasn’t a filmmaker, I would be… a journalist/writer.
Photography courtesy of Sinéad O’Shea.
