[2][3] O'Brien was educated in Dublin where she won prizes in the international competitions of London's Royal Drawing Society.
[4] At 17 she spent a year in West Cornwall with Stanhope Alexander Forbes and at 18 she took part in her first exhibition at the Royal Hibernian Academy.
Her studio in Limerick was always called the piggery and was where she brought in the plants from her garden to arrange for her work.
[2][5] On occasion she would use her art to raise funds for charities like Friends of St Luke's Hospital in Rathgar.
[5] O'Brien married David Coote Hely Hutchinson on 25 September 1948 with whom she had one daughter.