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*****
'A perfect symbiosis between text and images -
both similarity affectionate, respectful, humorous,
slightly melancholic but never sentimental or nostalgic.
This is invaluable social history'.
Cara, 2014.
*****
'This is a
beautiful and remarkably simple book
that will
melt the
hardest of
hearts. Bunbury has a light
writing
style that
lets his interviewees,
elderly folk from
around
the country,
tell their stories without
interference.
It's
neither
patronising nor overly romantic about the
past;
just
narrating moving tales ... The portraits by Fennell are
striking, warm and dignified, with a feeling of being
invited
into
people's lives'.
The Sunday Times, December 2013.
******
The Vanishing Ireland series is available in
bookshops
across
Ireland or
from Turtle's Amazon Store.
Turtle's new book 'The Glorious Madness - Tales of the Irish & the Great War' was short-listed
for Best Irish-published Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards 2014.
"Turtle Bunbury’s open-handed, clear-sighted and finely written book comes fresh and, I might
almost say, redeemed
out of the moil and storm of controversy that surrounded the topic of the war,
in a thousand different guises in the
decades since its end. Turtle holds out his hand in the present,
seeking the lost hands of the past, in darkness, in
darkness, but also suddenly in the clear light of
kindness - in the upshot acknowledging their imperilled existence with
a brilliant flourish, a
veritable banner, of wonderful stories."
Sebastian Barry.
'Turtle continues the wonderful listening and yarn-spinning he has honed in the Vanishing Ireland
series, applying it to
veterans of the first World War. The stories he recreates are poignant, whimsical
and bleakly funny, bringing back into
the light the lives of people who found themselves on the
wrong side of history after the struggle for Irish
independence. This is my kind of micro-history.'
John Grenham, The Irish Times.
The book, which was launched by Sebastian Barry, is
available from all good bookshops nationwide
or directly from
Turtle's aStores at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
For more, see The Glorious Madness.
Turtle Bunbury is a best-selling
author,
historian,
speaker
and TV presenter based in
Ireland. His new
book 'The Glorious Madness - Tales of the
Irish &
the Great War' (Gill &
Macmillan) was short-listed
for the Best Irish-published Book of the Year
2014.
The book is
available directly from Turtle's aStores
at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
He
is a keynote
speaker on
the Great
War
Roadshow
and a co-presenter of 'Genealogy
Roadshow'; the
second series is now airing on the
Irish
television
channel
RTE One on Sundays at 6:30pm.
He is the founder of Wistorical, an innovative
concept for promoting Irish
history globally.
Turtle's past books include the award-winning
Vanishing
Ireland series, Sporting Legends of
Ireland,
The
Irish Pub and Living in Sri
Lanka.
Since 2006, four of his books have been short-listed
for the
Best Irish Published Book of the Year.
He was
Newstalk
Breakfast's Resident Historian
from June to December 2013.
Turtle is the co-founder of the
annual
History
Festival
of Ireland.
A past winner of Ireland's Long Haul Travel
Journalist of the Year Award, he wrote the April 2014
cover story for
National Geographic Traveler.
His work has also been
published in The World of
Interiors, Playboy, The Irish Times,
The Financial
Times,
The New York
Post,
The Australian,
The
Guardian and
Vogue Living.
Wistorical, Turtle's
historical blog,
is updated daily and
provides an innovative
forum for
promoting
local history
globally. Click on Wistorical to join.
Click here to follow Turtle on Wordpress
THE GLORIOUS MADNESS - Tales of the Irish & the Great War
From the generals and field commanders through to the troopers and nurses on the front lines, the Irish served at every turn in the Great War.
They tore through the skies in flimsy biplanes. They soared across the seas in battleships. They charged across the tortured earth with bayonets fixed. They wrapped bandages and dabbed softly in the field hospitals. They prayed, they sang, they killed, they wept and they died.
Popular historian Turtle Bunbury is renowned for uncovering important forgotten stories from our past. Here he reveals many never-before-heard tales of the Irish heroes and heroines whose lives coincided with one of the most brutal conflicts our world has ever known — including nuns, artists, sportsmen, poets, aristocrats, nationalists, nurses, clergymen and film directors.
By turns poignant, enlightening, whimsical and darkly comic, this is history as it should be — free-wheeling and finely tuned to the rhythms of the human heart.
THE GREAT WAR ROADSHOW
Over the course of 2014, Turtle toured Ireland as one of the lecturers with the Great War Roadshow, speaking at events in Boyle, Kells, Tallaght, Clonegal, Greystones, Dublin City, Thurles and Cavan. His fellow lecturers included Myles Dungan, John O'Keefe, Ciaran Wallace, Gordon Power and Damian Shiels.
THE VANISHING IRELAND PROJECT
Since 2001, historian Turtle Bunbury and photographer James Fennell have criss-crossed their native Ireland innumerable times, interviewing and photographing over 300 people aged between 70 and 108 about the old ways of life. Their findings have been published in a series of beautiful coffee table books.
'Vanishing Ireland -Friendship & Community', the fourth and final book in the series, was short-listed for the 2013 Best Irish Published Book of the Year. It was was launched in October 2013, with talks by Turtle in London, Paris, Dublin and Cork.
All four 'Vanishing Ireland' books are available via Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk
Since the publication of the first volume in 2006, the series has become a household name across Ireland with the Irish Independent hailing it as 'an invaluable record of times past'. Three of the books have been short-listed for Best Irish Published Book of the Year, while the third volume was the best-selling ‘Picture Book’ in Ireland at Christmas 2011.
Turtle and James also collaborated on ‘The Irish Pub’, an ode to the rapidly changing pub scene in rural Ireland, which inspired a feature length movie of the same name and a impending 2015 feature article in Inspirato (USA).
Turtle has given talks on the project in New York, Paris, London, Chicago, Dublin, Limerick, Dublin, Carlow, Cork, Kilkenny and Monte Carlo.
Click here to Join the 'Vanishing Ireland' Facebook
The series has also enjoyed a run of successful shows at Burtown House, Co. Kildare; Smock Alley Theatre and the City Assembly House, Dublin; Cill Rialaig, Co. Kerry; the Visual Arts Centre in Carlow & the Hunt Museum in Limerick City.
GENEALOGY ROADSHOW
The second series of the 'Genealogy Roadshow' originally aired on RTE One during May 2014 with a repeat showing in November 2014. The three episodes were filmed at Powerscourt, County Wicklow, University College Cork and Lumen Christi College, Derry. In each episode, Turtle - as a historian - teams up with genealogists John Grenham and Susan Chadwick to investigate claims by people who believe they have famous or infamous relatives, or that they are connected to a historical event or long-standing mystery.
Produced by Big Mountain, the first series originally aired on RTE1 television in 2011, was repeated twice in 2012 and again in both 2013 and January 2014. PBS America developed its own version of the Big Mountain format which aired in 2013 and is also up for a second series. For more details, click here.
TURTLE ON NEWSTALK
Turtle was Resident Historian on Newstalk Breakfast radio from June to December 2013. Click on the logo above to hear podcasts of his popular 'Hidden Histories' slot.
(Illustration by Derry Dillon)
HISTORY FESTIVAL OF IRELAND
Turtle was co-founder with Hugo Jellett of the History Festival of Ireland and curated the event in 2012 and 2013. The 2015 event is scheduled to ru alongside the Éigse Literary Festival at Borris House.
Turtle also spoke at the 2014 History Festival which took place at Huntington Castle in County Carlow on the weekend of 8-9 June. The 2014 curator was Angus Mitchell.
Click here for more or to learn more about the History Festival, please sign up to the Facebook page or check out www.thehistoryfestivalofireland.com The History Festival is an Éigse initiative.
Above: Turtle with Sir Terry Wogan.
BRIEF NOTES
Turtle frequently lends his historical expertise to TV documentaries such as 'The Genealogy Roadshow', 'Who Do You Think You Are?' and 'Wogan's Ireland', in which he pondered the drunkenness of the Jacobite troops at the battle of the Boyne with Sir Terry Wogan. He co-scripted and researched the award-nominated documentary 'John Henry Foley - Sculptor of the Empire'. He was Resident Historian on Newstalk Breakfast show from June to December 2013.
Turtle has delivered talks on the 'Vanishing Ireland' project, the Dublin Docklands, 'Big House' archives and the history of the Bunbury family to the New York and Chicago chapters of the Irish Georgian Society, as well as the 2013 Poesie and Prose Literary Festival in Paris, the Irish Writers Festival in London, the 2013 St Patrick's Festival (Marsh's Library) in Dublin, the 2012 Tall Ships Festival in Dublin and the Royal Dublin Society.
Tutle is a guest blogger for the Irish Executives on LinkedIn, as well as a frequent contributor to the Discover Ireland website, WorldIrish.com, Irish Family Names, the Wild Geese Blog and the Gathering Ireland 2013 campaign.
He has also talked about inspirational books with Daisy Banks of The Browser.
In 2011, he was the Ireland Fund of Monaco's Writer-in-Residence at the Princess Grace Irish Library.
TO BUY TURTLE'S BOOKS ONLINE CLICK ON AN IMAGE BELOW or CLICK HERE TO VISIT HIS PAGE AT AMAZON.
Dublin Docklands, The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of County Wicklow and The Landed Gentry of County Kildare are all presently out of print. However, you will find the content of all three books freely available via the 'Published Books' section on the sidebar of this website.
*****
This website has been compiled in the interest of furthering the research and study of both local and international history.