Born and raised in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, by creative, antique shop owning parents, Grainne was immersed in and surrounded both by the traditional crafts, folklore, music and fairytales of the country as well as her parents’ enthusiasm and love of collecting.
She moved to Scotland in the late eighties to study at Edinburgh College of Art and become an avid collector of antiques and ephemera. These collections became, and remain, the inspiration for her work. She later studied in Kilkenny with the Arts Council of Ireland and returned to Edinburgh for her post graduate diploma. She now lives and works in the city with her husband and family.
Grainne’s work has been exhibited internationally. In 2007, she was shortlisted for the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize and her work is in the permanent collections at National Museums Scotland; Crafts Council Collection, London; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada and the Ulster Museum, Belfast.