So please join me in welcoming our closing plenary, Bernadette Cunningham.

Thank you, Brendan, for that extraordinary introduction.

And thank you to Deirdre and her colleagues for the invitation to speak to you this afternoon.

My talk today, and you may be surprised with my choice of topic, is about Frances Walsingham, an English woman born on the Isle of Wight in 1567, but whose network of influence extended to Ireland and particularly to County Galway in the early 17th century.

The topic draws, obviously, on my recent book that Brendan mentioned, English Countess, Irish Earl, but I will include some observations on the business of writing about a Tudor woman in the early modern period who has left little by way of correspondence or any archival material that's directly about her.

My interest was not just in picking any random Tudor countess.

My interest was in this particular woman who married a particular Irish earl, Richard Burke, 4th Earl of Clanricard, whose dates are 1572 to 1635.

[audience applauding]

Thank you, Brendan, for that extraordinary, uh, introduction, and thank you to Deirdre and her colleagues for the invitation to speak to you this afternoon.

My talk today, and you may be surprised with my choice of topic, is about Frances Walsingham, an English woman born on the Isle of Wight in 1567, but whose network of influence extended to Ireland, and particularly to County Galway in the early seventeenth century.

The topic draws obviously on my recent book that Brendan mentioned, English Countess, Irish Earl, but I will include, uh, some observations on the business of writing about a Tudor woman, um, in the early modern, uh, uh, in the early modern period who has left little by way of correspondence or any archival material, uh, that's directly about her.

My interest was not just in picking any random Tudor countess.

My interest was in this particular woman, um- Who married a particular Irish earl, Richard Burke, Fourth Earl of Clanricarde, whose dates are fifteen seventy-two to sixteen thirty-five.

And I was interest-interested in recovering the circumstances that made them think that they were ap-appropriate marriage partners for each other.

[laughs]