Introduced by the circumstances of the 'found MS', whereby a knight, travelling through Ireland in a storm, takes shelter in a poor hovel where he finds the 140 year-old Countess of Desmond, who passes her story and documents to him for safekeeping. He reads the MS, as it is narrated. This is a fictionalised account of the events of the Insurrection of 1534 in Ireland. Occasional references in footnotes direct readers to historical sources to indicate the veracity of the main historical events recounted. The narrative tracks the fall of the House of Desmond, and observes the domestic repercussions of the insurrection, although it also details various skirmishes and battles. The eventual siege of the Castle of Maynooth is similarly viewed from an internal, domestic perspective, with focus on the disruption caused to the Earl and Countess of Desmond and their daughter, Elinor. The kidnapping of Elinor (twice), and her incarceration in labyrinthine dungeons, provides a Gothic influence to the text.

The aristocratic characters often use archaism, especially in formal situations, but the main interest comes with the representations of Irish English. A prefatory editorial note claims these 'anachronistic' representations arise because these are 'translations' from the 'original Irish', and are the only way to capture 'the singularity of the ideas and expressions' (p. 11). The density of marking in the dialects would seem to differ from character to character (so while Alice, Elinor's erstwhile nurse, is depicted with a densely marked dialect, her daughter, Rose, has less heavily marked dialogue. A traitorous Irish character, O'Kelly, also has dialogue characterised by heavy marking. Two English soldiers, who appear only briefly towards the end of the narrative, share a mildly marked variety of English.