Growing up, O’Connor did not expect to work the family farm, near Macroom in West Cork.

“Though I'm not suggesting that I had exact clarity on what the rest of my life would look like,” she says.

“I lived in the UK for a while.

I worked in retail and in customer care, in big chip companies like British Airways and British Telecom.

"Also, I studied fashion.

I was a kind of a chameleon, I did lots of different things.

Around the year 2000, I began taking photographs through an evening course at Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork.

I just quickly fell in love, I became obsessed with photography.

I knew it was the right trajectory for me.” O’Connor went on to study the medium at the Technological University, Dublin before completing a masters at Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology in 2011.

“I tried to work commercially in photography after that,” she says, “doing things like weddings, but I just didn't feel like it was the right thing for me.

I really wanted to work as an artist.” She had already begun to establish herself, through solo and group exhibitions, when her brother Jerome died of cancer in 2013.

“We were a family of four girls and one boy, and the farm had passed, in the traditional manner, from our father to Jerome.

He worked it for nearly 30 years, and then, when he died, my sister Síle and I inherited.” Returning to work the farm brought a considerable change to her lifestyle and priorities, a process she recorded in another project, Tomorrow is Sunday, in 2020.

“But it’s getting close to a decade and a half now,” she says.

“We’re beef farmers.

We have cattle for eight months of the year, and then we take a little sojourn for the winter months, and we go back into it again around February or March.

"But when you're a custodian of the land, you’re busy all year round in one way, shape or form.

I don't mind the work.

It did take a little bit of getting used to, but it's different when the place is yours.

The power relations and the responsibilities shift.

You have to take responsibility for the land and the animals, and how things work out.

But, yeah, I quite enjoy it, you know?” O’Connor and her sister also care for their mother.

“It can be difficult,” she says.

“There are many challenges, from food and nutrition, to looking after the medical side of things.

One of the questions that is always on your mind is, what's wrong? What do you need? How can I help? So it can be quite stressful, but then it can be extremely rewarding as well.

You have these moments of endearment, running in conjunction with a kind of chaos.

I think what's critical is that me and my sister do it together.

And we’re lucky because our mom is....