Eva Birthistle is an Irish actress and writer. She is best known for her roles in Bad Sisters and Ae Fond Kiss..., and also starred in The Last Kingdom between 2015 and 2022. She won the London Film Critics Circle British or Irish Actress of the Year Award in 2004, and has twice won the IFTA Best Actress in a Leading Role (Film) award.

The Last Kingdom is a British historical drama television series based on Bernard Cornwell's The Saxon Stories series of novels. The series was developed for television by Stephen Butchard and premiered on 10 October 2015 on BBC Two. For the second series, Netflix co-produced the series. In 2018, the series was acquired by Netflix, which continued the series for three more series. The series concluded on 9 March 2022 after five series for a total of 46 episodes. A feature-length sequel that concluded the series story, titled Seven Kings Must Die, premiered on 14 April 2023 on Netflix.