Sarah Cecilia Harrison Essay Prize 2025

A charcoal sketch of a woman looking slightly over her shoulder. There are some white and red highlights on the sketch.
Antonio Mancini (1852-1930), Sarah Cecilia Harrison (1836-1941), Artist, 1909

New research and writing telling the stories of women in Ireland's visual culture 

The National Gallery of Ireland is delighted to launch the fourth year of the Sarah Cecilia Harrison Essay Prize. This award marks Sarah Cecilia Harrison’s legacy in the arts and as a social campaigner and will recognise the best new research and writing, telling the stories of women and Ireland’s visual culture, including fine art, design and craft.

The prize is open to all members of the public over 18 years of age. The author of the winning essay will be awarded a €1,000 prize at a reception held in the National Gallery of Ireland on 13 November 2025.

This prize is generously supported by the descendants of the sister of Sarah Cecilia Harrison, Beatrice Chisholm.

How to enter

Read the competition rules

Before entering the competition, read the eligibility requirements and competition rules in full.

Your essay

  • Must relate to women who have contributed to Ireland’s visual culture or Irish women who have worked in the visual arts abroad
  • Must be new and previously unpublished
  • Must be written in English only
  • No longer than 5000 words in length, inclusive of cover pages, footnotes and endnotes

How to submit

Email your entry to [email protected] before midnight (IST) on Friday 19 September 2025..

You must include the following information in the body of your email:

  1. Your full name
  2. Your address
  3. Your telephone number
  4. Your date of birth
  5. A statement of permission for the Gallery to share your name and locality (if shortlisted) with press, media and other promotional purposes in connection with the competition, including on the Gallery’s social media platforms
  6. Social media handles (optional)

You must add the following documents as attachments (either as Word documents or PDFS) to your email:

  1. Essay 
  2. 500-word abstract
  3. 200-500 word biography of the author 

Include your full name in the filename of each document.

Closing date

Complete entries must be emailed to [email protected] by midnight (IST) on Friday 19 September 2025.

Previous winners

2024

2023

2022

The Gallery's Library and Archive

The Gallery’s Library and Archive include important and valuable collections of research material held at the Centre for the Study of Irish Art (CSIA), Yeats Archive and Gallery's institutional archives. These collections support the study and scholarly interpretation of visual art in Ireland.

The central role played by women artists in the development and dissemination of modernist art in Ireland is well documented. However, the broader story of women artists in Ireland and their achievements has often been forgotten, or viewed as ancillary to the standard canon.

In 2019 the Gallery acquired the Sarah Cecilia Harrison archive. Comprising over 400 letters from Sir Hugh Lane to the artist, the archive (dating from 1905–1915) provides insight into the world in which both Lane and Harrison lived and worked. This important collection is now fully catalogued and digitised and available to researchers on source.ie. 

Archives and primary research are essential to understanding and revealing these stories. Through the development of our collections, engagement and learning programmes, the Library and Archives department, including the CSIA, has worked to promote Irish women artists as well as female-led collectives and industries.