Edna O’Brien is regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest writers. Her novels, which focus on female characters, created significant controversy, eliciting reactions from both the Catholic Church and the government because of O’Brien’s use of what was considered inappropriate language and behaviour for 1960s Ireland. O’Brien never wavered in her beliefs; she consistently defended her work and her views on women’s sexuality, which only heightened the controversy surrounding her. Sinéad O’Shea, known for her previous documentary, Prayer of Our Sinners, which examined the power and abuse within the Catholic Church in her hometown of Navan, presents Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story. This new documentary explores the public and private aspects of Edna O’Brien’s life. We spoke with O’Shea to learn more about the project.
Why did you want to tell Edna O’Brien’s story?
I was commissioned to write an article about Edna a few years ago, and I remember thinking it would be dull. I associated Edna with her being lightweight. Strangely, I had this impression of her, though if you watch the film, it’s not so strange because there was a peculiar attitude towards her in Ireland. I had to read her books in preparation, and they were really amazing. I met her, and she was just so charismatic; I fell in love with her and could not stop thinking about her. I was at a wedding two years ago, and I just struck up a conversation with a stranger. I quoted Edna O’Brien to them, and they said she’s one of my best friends. She suggested I should make a documentary about her, and I thought that was a great idea. I went to Screen Ireland and began to develop the project, but I couldn’t get through to Edna, so I went back to that person I’d met at the wedding, who happened to be the film producer Barbara Broccoli, who makes the James Bond films. I asked Barbara to help me connect with Edna and I sent her my previous documentary, Pray for Our Sinners. She watched that and told Edna about me. After that, Edna wrote to me, and we began filming in August 2023. It was a real race against time because she wasn’t well, and she was getting weaker and weaker. It has been this huge, intense piece of work. I have dreamt of it day and night for more than a year.
When it came to interviewing Edna, was she open to discussing all areas of her life?
She was very open and directed me to her diaries—that’s a very open and trusting thing to do. From a logistical point of view, it was not always easy because she was quite deaf, which was frustrating for her. If you were going to speak about something that was quite sensitive, you want to do that in a gentle way, but I would have to shout, which felt wrong, but we found a way around it.
You have many contributors, including Edna’s sons. Was it hard to get them involved?
No, they have spoken quite a bit to the press over the years, and Carlo has written books about his parents, so they weren’t too difficult to get a hold of. I encouraged them to speak as truthfully as they could. Sometimes, the more interviews you do, the more you slip into autopilot on a certain subject, but they were really amazing and shared so much.
Jessie Buckley narrates Edna’s diaries. How did she get involved?
I have a poet friend, Eva H.D., who I met through my last documentary. She worked with Jessie, so I asked Eva to speak to Jessie for me, and it turned out that Jessie is a huge fan of Edna and really wanted to be part of the film. Jessie and Edna have similarities; they both have this incredible star quality, so Jessie was a great fit.
Gabriel Byrne also features in the documentary. He is a big supporter of Irish writers. Is that why you asked him to feature?
He emailed me after he saw my last documentary, which was an extraordinary thing to do. When I was immersed in all my Edna research, I began to notice there were pictures of them doing readings together in New York, and he had spoken on her behalf when she won this huge honour from the French government. He’d been one of her advocates throughout her career, so I wrote to him and asked if he would be involved, and he said yes. He was so full of information and enthusiasm about the project. He was the easiest person to work with. His knowledge of her work is really deep, and his knowledge of literary Ireland is really substantial.
You have so much archive material, from Edna’s diaries to footage of her family. How did you comb through so much?
The greatest piece of archive in the film is a film Carlo made as a teenager. It’s so extraordinary. He’s dramatized one of his mother’s books, and by dramatizing it, he’s created a documentary with scenes of his mother and his grandfather, as well as so many other family moments. The wealth of material is immense from interviews with Edna on tv shows to footage of Edna’s famous parties, so we hired an archive producer, Paul Bell, who worked on the Asif Kapadia films Senna and Amy, and he was brilliant at shaking down the BBC. We had a really good Irish producer, Claire, who photographed all the pages of the diaries, and then we had a few different transcribers working on the diaries as well. It was a huge job.
What would you like people to take away from the film?
I would like people to reevaluate what they think of Edna and her work. It’s very easy to follow your own prejudices when it comes to well-known people, but it’s always worthwhile to dig a little deeper into somebody’s persona and find the truth behind the celebrity.
Interview by Cara O’Doherty
Blue Road: The Edna O’Brien Story is at cinemas from JAN 31st