There’s a lot of things happening in western Europe in the 16th and Early 17th century with the impact of the Renaissance, the Reformation, the whole opening-up of literacy and the printed press to a much wider number of people.

But there’s very little sign that that was being enjoyed by women in Ireland, whereas you can document women in England benefiting from it - you can’t document women in Ireland benefiting from it.

So probably the women who come to the Ulster Plantation, many of them would at least have been able to read because they would have had to learn to read, to read the Bible. Many of them would not have been able to write - there was a distinction in literacy between being able to read and being able to write. And women were encouraged to read, they weren’t encouraged to do the more active thing of writing.

But even then you do get in the 17th century, English women and some English women in Ireland, keeping diaries and writing letters whereas you don’t get the same written record from women from Gaelic society.