I passionately believe in celebrating women’s empowerment and have chosen to use my camera to focus on creating this portrait collection of fifty four ordinary women doing extraordinary things. Each portrait is accompanied by advice each woman would pass on and demonstrates valuable collective wisdom about female resilience.

This portrait collection is a celebration of women in modern Ireland, who have pushed through personal and professional glass ceilings including, though not exclusively, career firsts. The collection is purposefully displayed without frames or glass as a symbolic representation that empowerment is limitless and without restriction.

Sometimes in life a passion won’t let you sit and wait for someone else to do it, sometimes that someone else is you and that is how this project began. Although the women were photographed individually, there was a lived experience of an emerging sisterhood which began to build from the first photo and continues to live on as people engage with this exhibition.

I’m incredibly proud of the 54 women who took part and as proud as I am of the participants, I’m equally proud of all the women behind the scenes who helped bring this body of work to life in glorious colour!

The aim is to capture a diverse representation of women of Ireland including many different walks of life, ethnic backgrounds and age ranges, from the youngest 19-year-old to the oldest 95-year-old. Over that century, Ireland has undergone many positive legislative changes. These historical changes, displayed in black and white, punctuate the exhibition and act as reminders of those changes.

You have to see to be it!