Qualifications
I hold a BA (2007) in History and Classics from University College Cork and a PhD in History (2013) from University College Cork. The latter was awarded for a thesis on ‘Tudor “Reform” Treatises and Government Policy in Sixteenth-Century Ireland’.

Publications
I have published widely in the field of early modern Irish and British history over the last decade. This includes four books, with the Irish Manuscripts Commission, Manchester University Press and Four Courts Press (see books for more details), and over twenty articles in international peer-review and peer-review journals such as The Sixteenth-Century Journal, Historical Research, The Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Irish Historical Studies and Analecta Hibernica.

I have also acted as a book reviewer for Renaissance Quarterly, History Ireland, Irish Economic and Social History, Irish Historical Studies and Studia Hibernica. Further books are forthcoming with the Irish Manuscripts Commission and articles with the The British Library Journal and Irish Historical Studies are nearing print. See below for a full listing.

Teaching and Organisational Experience
I have taught in three universities in Ireland and Britain since 2009: University College Cork, the University of Galway (previously the National University of Ireland, Galway) and Queen’s University Belfast. This teaching work involved modules that were both focused on individual elements of early modern Irish and British history and general survey courses of the history of early modern Europe and the Americas, covering everything from colonisation and high politics to witchcraft and religion.

I have also organised conferences in Ireland and the UK and have been involved in a major collaborative project at University College Cork on the ‘Colonial Landscapes of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, c. 1602–1643’. Through this varied work I have presented at academic conferences in Ireland, the UK, the US and Germany.

Freelance Experience
I have worked full time as a freelance historical researcher, consultant, writer, palaeographer and editor since 2022. During this time, I have worked with a wide range of clients, ranging from government bodies and academics to commercial companies and individuals working on their own historical projects.

This work has been very varied. Some of it involves transcribing and editing early modern manuscripts for publication through organisations such as the Irish Manuscripts Commission. Elsewhere it can involve more general copywriting for historical companies for their websites and publications. In between I have carried out detailed research for companies working on history books and have also ghost-written for several publishing houses, as well copy-editing work for academic publication.

Much of this work is remote and I have worked with clients in Ireland, the UK, Germany, the US, Canada, Australia and the Middle East. I also work on location where needed to carry out research in archives such as the National Library of Ireland, the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, the British Library and others in the UK and Ireland.

Clients I have worked with include:

• The Irish Manuscripts Commission

• The Royal Irish Academy

• MyHeritage

• The People Profiles

• This Day in Wine History

• DartFrog Books

• The Medina Content & Design Group.

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Select Peer-Review Journal Articles and Book Chapters

‘Debating Irish Policy at the Court of Elizabeth I, c. 1558–80’, in David Edwards and Brendan Kane (eds.), Ireland and the Renaissance Court: Political culture from the cúirteanna to Whitehall, 1450–1640 (Manchester, 2024), pp. 105–122.

‘Corruption and Crown Government in Late Elizabethan Ireland: The Career and Writings of Robert Legge’, in The Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. 122 (2022), pp. 1–25.

‘Political Discourse and the Nine Years’ War in Late Elizabethan Ireland, c. 1593–1603’, in Historical Research, Vol. 94, No. 264 (May, 2021), pp. 282–302.

‘Patrick Finglas’s A Breviat of the Conquest of Ireland and of the Decay of the Same, c. 1535, and the Tudor Conquest of Ireland’, in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Summer, 2018), pp. 369–388.

‘The Reduction of Leinster and the Origins of the Tudor Conquest of Ireland, c. 1534–1546’, in Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 40, No. 157 (May, 2016), pp. 1–22.