Miriam was able to see the big picture after move

IN 2013 following the death of her brother, Miriam O’Connor found herself upping sticks from her life as a photographer in the arts and culture scene in Dublin to move home to run her family farm in Clondrohid, near Macroom in Co Cork.

With her father also deceased, it was up to Miriam and her sister Sheila to run the beef farm along with their mother.

While Miriam says it was a challenging move at the start, she has managed to find a way to blend farming with her passion for photography.

“It all started when I was out doing some fencing with Sheila in the field and we needed some materials from the co-op but I didn’t even know the names of the materials at this stage,” she says.

“So I decided I would take a photograph of them and bring them to the co-op and they would tell me the names of these things. So that was the catalyst moment where I thought maybe photography could be put to use and could work as a document of the farm.”

The work includes meticulous photographic logs of all the gates in the farm yard, a particular path on the land at different times of the year and a collection of all the buckets on the farm, plus endless images of her mother.

Miriam says the project has had many stages — “not unlike grief” — and has helped her in the transition from urban to rural living.

“It was a response to the relocation to the farm and suddenly being a custodian of the land and what that transition entails. It really was such an unexpected move,” says Miriam, who still lectures in Griffith College, Dublin.

“I didn’t have an intention to make this body of work but it has helped and is constantly growing and never ending like the work of the farmer there’s never the luxury of being finished or having nothing to do.”

Miriam says the farming dynamic with her sister and mother can range from “unifying to challenging” but she feels for the most part it has brought them closer together.

“I came back to help keep the show on the road, there’s always that element of keeping that show on the road on a farm. It’s not easy but there is that trust amongst us and we work well together. I helped out on the farm when I was a child. There’s five of us in the family so that’s the way it was but it’s different when it’s in your name.

“There’s a responsibility there and with that comes a lot of burden but there are moments when you walk out in the field and realise that there is brilliance there and that keeps you grounded.”