John Minihan on photographing Edna O’Brien: 'Everyone wanted to meet her'

West Cork-based photographer took an iconic picture of Edna O'Brien. He recalls that day in London in 1971, and other encounters with the late writer

Edna O'Brien: photographed by John Minihan (right)

Edna O’Brien’s was one of the best-known faces in the London of the Swinging Sixties.

Beautiful and glamorous, O’Brien commanded attention, and featured regularly in the social columns in the newspapers. But she had come by fame the hard way, by dint of her achievements. By 1968, when the Irish photographer John Minihan first met her, at a Foyle’s Literary Lunch, she had already published five novels, including the Country Girls trilogy.