Irene Ribeiro was born in Esposende in 1949. Between 1970 and 1973, she attended the Drawing and Plastic Arts Course at the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation in São Paulo, Brazil, as a scholarship holder. In 1978 and 1979, she pursued a Post-Graduation at the School of Communication and Arts at the University of São Paulo. In 1979, she received a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for an internship at the Gravura - Portuguese Engravers Cooperative in Lisbon, and in 1987, a grant from the same institution for engraving research. In 1989, she received support from the SEC/Visual Arts Division of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for the "Terras de Além Mar" exhibition at the Brazilian Art Museum of the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation in São Paulo. In 1994, she received a grant from the same foundation for the itinerant exhibition: "Engraving 1974/94" at the National Library of Lisbon, Árvore Cooperative in Porto, and the Municipal Museum of Esposende, and for the individual exhibition "Hors Concours" at the Troisième Triennale Mondiale d'Estampes Petit Format in Chamalières, France. She has participated in several individual and collective exhibitions, such as at the Juan Martin Gallery in Mexico City in 1976, the VI British International Print Biennale in Bradford, England in 1979, the II Winter Festival of Unicap in Recife, Pernambuco in 1979, the 3rd Exhibition of Plastic Arts of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon in 1986, "How Artists See the Environment" in Barking and Dagenham, Great Britain in 1987, the Luso-Brazilian Contemporary Engraving Salon at the Casino Estoril Gallery in 1988, the Itinerant Exhibition of Plastic Arts "Portugal - The Place Where I Live" in Heimsheim, Germany in 1992, among others. Her work is represented in public and private collections in Portugal and abroad.