Kate has been involved with conserving Ireland’s bats since the mid-1980s when she began studying the ecology and behaviour of the lesser horseshoe bat in County Clare. In the 1990s she joined the Vincent Wildlife Trust (www.vincentwildlife.ie) and by 2007 had helped the Trust acquire 12 summer roosts of the lesser horseshoe bat in Mayo, Galway, Clare and Kerry, which now contain one third of Ireland’s national horseshoe bat population. She co-authored the Lesser Horseshoe Bat Species Action Plan with Dr Ferdia Marnell of National Parks and Wildlife Service that was launched in August 2022 (https://bit.ly/48EuoHT). She led the VWTs involvement in a partnership project between 2021-2023 with the Mulkear River Catchment EIP to provide new roosts for the lesser horseshoe bat in east Limerick (https://bit.ly/3NimYAh). She also oversees conservation and research on the pine marten and Irish stoat. She recently joined the committee of Dark Sky Ireland .