Turtle's History Library

The oldest licensed premises in Belfast is also one of its most alluring. The pub was a meeting place for the United Irishmen in the run up to the disastrous rebellion of 1798. It is still easy to imagine such characters plotting revolution here over dark ales and tankards of mead. The pub has changed little since the age of Wolfe Tone and McCracken.

Trixie Friganza (1870-1955)   The vaudeville and early movie actress Trixie Friganza (1870-1955) was born …

The formative years of the Naas Race Company, and the story of its original cast and dramatis personnae.

The stories of a man born without limbs who became an explorer, as well as the Czech engineer who invented the water-bike, the murder of a Hollywood director, the prince of Antwerp who made Carlow his home, the crazy doctor who blew up Carlow Castle and the mystery of one of the world’s biggest ancient monuments. Extracted from Past Tracks, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

The White House was built by a fellow from Kilkenny and burned down by a man from Down. At least 22 of its presidential occupants had Irish roots, as did numerous other founding fathers and leading political figures in US history. This epic tale looks at the many, many connections between Ireland and the US presidents, including the White House staff over the years and the Irish links to the 2024 showdown between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.

Benjamin Disraeli (c. 1766-1814), reputedly an uncle of the British prime minister, made a fortune as a lottery agent during the reign of George III. He prospered after his lottery office at 105 Grafton Street sold the winning ticket for a prize worth £30,000 in 1795. In his will, he left £3,000 for the establishment of a non-denominational school “for the education of the poor of Rathvilly” in his adopted county of Carlow. 

See here for other tales from County Sligo   Churchill’s Mentor   Winston Churchill arguably …

An eccentric and prolific architect. Robertson left his mark on such well-known Irish mansions as Killruddery, Powerscourt and Lisnavagh. An American of Scots origin, he grew up between South Carolina and Georgia before training as an architect in London. Having gone bankrupt in 1830, he moved to Ireland where he lived until his death in Howth in 1849.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Sligo’s past.

Rose Shaw was governess to the Gledstanes of Fardross House in County Tyrone during the early 20th century. She spent much of her time walking in the Clogher Valley, on the border of Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, photographing local people. This page showcases 11 of her wonderful photographs.

A look at the origins of Lisnavagh's name, and the various players – Butler, Leyn, Meredith, Gilbert and Korton – who were connected to the townland before the Bunburys arrived. The more I learn about the past, the more connected I feel to the future.

In the distant past, the raths around Lisnavagh were part of the power base of the Uí Ceinnselaig (Kinsellagh). This section considers the links to Rathmore, Rathvilly, the Oldfort ringfort and the Slíghe Chualann, as well as two kings of Leinster, Crimthann mac Énnai (who was baptised by St Patrick) and his father, Enna Kinsellagh .

The story of the Colleys is a rip-roaring account from the first  dastardly Tudor to come to Ireland on Thomas Cromwell's watch through to the sad finale for Corkagh, the Colley house near Clondalkin, County Dublin. Among those profiled are the Duke of Wellington, the novelist Elizabeth Bowen, the Titanic victim Eddie Colley and the ancestors of the actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.

Beach Boys   The beach at Portrane has had no shortage of celebrity visitors over …

The Informant   Built in 1990, Confey Station stands beside Cope Bridge, a bridge that …

See also Raheny, Bayside and other Dublin areas here.   A Viking Longphort   Did …

A Chinese proverb maintains that wealth cannot pass beyond three generations. The first generation accumulates …

The King of Bray   Edward Breslin (1818-1897), the son of a small farmer from …

Foreword   Introduction 1 – The Time Before the Normans Charting the emergence of the …

The Pirate Station   Sunshine Radio, the most successful super-pirate radio station in Irish history, …

By 1890, Chicago had the third highest population of Irish emigrants in the USA. The city's heroes include Butch O'Hare, Captain Francis O'Neill, Richard Daley, Mother Jones and the men who built the I&M Canal. In the fall of 2024, Ireland House will open in the Chicago to house the Consulate General of Ireland and representatives from Ireland’s economic and trade promotion agencies. This page includes what is surely the most comprehensive list of Chicago-linked Irish-Americans online, thanks to Belinda Evangelista.

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Charting the emergence of the landscape around Kilkea Castle in County Kildare from the end of the last Ice Age through the establishment of the ringforts at Mullaghreelan and Mullaghmast, as well as St Caoide’s church, to the eve of the Cambro-Norman conquest in the 1170s.

Medical Missionary   Marie Martin (1892–1975), the daughter of a successful timber merchant, was born …

The Kingdom of Desmond   Cork City was the original capital of the Kingdom of …

The saga of a family who flee Scotland with the downfall of Mary, Queen of Scots, and make their fortune in Ireland through private banking and a useful cousin that happens to own a handful of iron mines in Sweden. Covering events such as the 1798 Rising and Robert Emmet’s Rebellion, the story ends in tragedy with the death in war of the last three Finlay sons of Corkagh House, County Dublin.

This Antrim gem has been in the same family for an astonishing fourteen generations. Most of what one sees is old world from the classic black light switches and coat hooks beneath the counter to the keyhole clock that gongs above the bar. This was an old man’s pub and to a large extent it still is. ‘We don’t do refurbishment’, says the present owner, Tom O'Neill.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Cork and Cork City’s past.

a German spy who was captured in Ireland during the Second World War.

In 1940, an Abwehr agent was parachuted into Ireland to persuade the IRA to assist a planned German military invasion of Northern Ireland via Lough Swilly, County Donegal. I'm not convinced Hitler's team ever thought the plan was a runner. They basically sent a solitary man to Ireland to orchestrate the invasion.

The family who prospered on the Ballyknockan granite quarries in County Wicklow, several branches of which relocated to County Kildare where they became one of the best-known equestrian dynasties in Ireland during the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Descended from a Presbyterian minister whose son struck gold in banking and linen, the family lived at Straffan House on the banks of the Liffey during the 18th century, as well as nearby Lodge Park. A high-profile marriage to the Earl of Milltown’s daughter gave them a prominent position in Irish society. Family members include Joseph Henry, one of Ireland’s greatest art connoisseurs; Admiral Hastings Yelverton, First Lord of the Admiralty; and Commander Michael Henry of the Polaris submarine.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Louth’s past.

Arctic Explorer   One of the largest sea channels on earth is named for Captain …

Taking the story from his succession as 2nd Baron Rathdonnell in 1879 and the complexities of the Land Wars, through the glory days of Anchor, Bluebeard and the other Lisnavagh bulls, plus the marriage of his daughters, the death of Billy in the Anglo-Boer War and up to the eve of the Great War.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, pubs, families, events and places connected to County Carlow’s past.

Built as a rectory for the Church of Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars, Bishopscourt was considered such a fine abode that two Bishops of Clogher opted to use it as their main place of residence during the first decades of the 20th century. This tale takes in the Lennard family, scions of a natural daughter of Charles II, as well as Cassandra Hand, champion of Clones Lace; the dairying enterprise of the Mealiff family; the fabulously named Baldwin Murphy; and the enigmatic Archie Moore, Consultant Surgeon at Monaghan General Hospital.

This part takes up from William’s retirement from the navy, after 20 years at sea, and the complete revolution in his life in 1846 when, in the space of 5 weeks, he succeeded to his wealthy uncle’s fortune and became MP for Carlow, just as Peel’s government collapsed and the potato blight began to scorch the land. It looks at his sojourn in County Fermanagh, his marriage into the Stronge family of Tynan Abbey, his political term at Westminster and the construction of Lisnavagh House.

Michael holds out his miner’s hands, still etched with pallid blue stains from where coal dust got into the inevitable cuts. ‘You hear a lot of talk these days about child labour in Asia and Africa,’ he says quietly, ‘but it wasn’t so long ago they had it here in Kilkenny.’

A prominent player in Irish politics during the last years of the Parliament in Dublin, aided by his kinship with John Foster, the last Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and his opposition to the Act of Union, the Brexit of its day. Following the tragic death of his first wife Jane (née Bunbury) in 1801, he married a sister of the 2nd Earl of Clancarty, one of the power houses of European politics after Napoleon’s defeat.

The economic realities were too complex for most old style pubs to survive in the new world. A fear of the breathalyser. The ban on smoking in public places. The temptation to sell one's licence, at considerable profit, to a Dublin pub chain or European hypermarket. The stay at home culture of the 2020s … here are some reflections on all this and that.

A two-time Guinness World Record-holder – the oldest and the most prolific cow ever recorded – Bertha passed away just three months short of her 49th birthday, being more than twice the lifespan of your average cow. This legendary Droimeann cow from Sneem, Co. Kerry, has been immortalised by an award-winning Irish gin.

Kenure House   The Kenure estate, just north of Rush, takes its name from Ceann …

Following the final quarter of a century of Tom Rathdonnell's life from the outbreak of the First Word War through the Irish revolutionary period to the Wall Street Crash.

Accounts of the Dalkey hawks and the Atmospheric Railway, of Matt Damon, Tom Hanks, and Harry Styles, of the Kingdom of Dalkey, a gold rush and a woman who tried to kill Mussolini, of Flann O’Brien, Maeve Binchy and the evolution of Sorrento Terrace, Vico Road and Monte Alverno, amongst other tales.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Kildare’s past.

Charting the rise of Speaker Conolly, an innkeeper’s son from Donegal who became the most powerful man of his generation. His magnificent Palladian residence at Castletown House, Celbridge, is one of the Irish nation’s greatest treasures. Also looking at connections to the disastrous 1798 Rebellion, the beautiful Lennox sisters, the Charlston Blockade and the Irish Georgian Society.

Child Prodigy   Rory McIlroy, who has enjoyed over 120 weeks as the world’s top …

In 1915 the horror of the First World War war ripped into County Cork when a torpedo sank the Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale; nearly 1200 people died in the attack.

Considering the impact of Ireland abroad from Cillian Murphy to St Patrick's Day to Mick Lynch and the Trade Unions, as well as the historical precedent behind the Biden presidency's support of the Good Friday agreement and the Irish diaspora around the world.

In 1847 the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma raised $170 for Irish famine relief. Their empathy was stirred by a similar experience during the early 1830s when between 1500 and 4,000 died Choctaw on the infamous ‘Trail of Tears’. This story explores the fate of the Choctaw and the two Irish-American brothers who helped them cross the Mississippi, and also looks at donations from the Muscogee, Cherokee and Mississauga people.

Following a family famous for the Mason-Dixie line, who made their mark as astronomers, canal engineers and wildlife artists, with cameos by intrepid emerald hunters in Colombia and Venezuela, plus the Red Lion Inn in Henley-on-Thames and links to the families of Bevan, Hare (Earl of Listowel), Pelham (Earl of Yarborough) and Rathdonnell (McClintock Bunbury).

The Butlers of Scatorish and Maiden Hall, County Kilkenny, descend from a branch of the Viscount Dunboyne’s descendants who settled at Priestown, County Meath, returning to County Kilkenny in the nineteenth century. Like almost every Butler on Planet Earth, they trace their lineage to Theobald fitzWalter, an Anglo-Norman knight who arrived in Ireland in 1185 in the retinue of Prince John, Lord of Ireland

An overview of Turtle's professional career, including bundles of photos from the last two or three decades.

Tom Kent’s nerves were so bad on the morning of his execution that the guards brought a chair in for him to sit upon. The man for whom Kent Station in Cork City would one day be named was buried in quicklime in an unmarked grave. This is the story of one of the more overlooked figure in the annals of the Easter Rising.

Click here for further County Louth tales. The Major & Maud Gonne   In 1966, …

We may not have the climate to grow our own vines, but the Irish have done a colossal amount to develop the wine trade and spread those succulent grape juices across this world from France to California to Australia and New Zealand.

Drogheda, 1847. The gas-lit harbour lights burned through the dusk as the tug-boat hauled the …

The Crying Game   Released in 1991, The Crying Game was the movie that propelled …

From ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions’ by Turtle Bunbury. Back …

Looking at the life of the first of the family to truly settle in County Carlow, where he acquired Killerrig, Lisnavagh and Tobinstown, as well as his connections to the Dukes of Ormonde, Philip Wharton and some lousy days for a Quaker sheep-farmer by name of Thomas Cooper. 

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Wicklow.

A county-by-county index to all the people interviewed for the Vanishing Ireland series.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Clare’s past.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Meath’s past.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Donegal’s past.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to the city and county of Dublin.

The Bear From Clare   Perhaps the earliest evidence of mankind in Ireland was found …

Musings upon the Monaghan and Tyrone connections to Viscount Falkland and the islands that bear his name.

My grandfather packed a lot into his 44 years. Born during the Great War, he lost his mother at the age of eight and, an only child, became very close to his father, the 3rd Baron Rathdonnell. Educated at Charterhouse and Cambridge in England, he lived it up in the US in the late 1930s but life turned serious again at the age of 21 when his father died and he succeeded as 4th Baron. He married Pamela Drew, a free-spirited artist, a few weeks later. And then came Hitler’s War, in which he found himself in command of a squadron of tanks …

Profiling the Moore family, ancestors of my fair wife Ally, who were flax-growers in County Armagh before making their mark in the world of railways, airplanes and medicine, with a focus on Tom Moore the huntsman, James Moore the blacksmith, Pilot Officer Stanley Moore and the surgeon Archie Moore.

In Ireland, St Brigid is considered as venerable as the Blessed Virgin, mother of Christ, and second only to St Patrick in the hierarchy of patron saints. She's even been known to turn up in a Lindsay Lohan rom-com. Her story is a complex cocktail, embracing the deities of pre-Christian Ireland and the political machinations of the medieval church, as well as a series of revamps in recent times.  

The stories of a Victoria Cross winning drummer boy, a world heavyweight boxing champ, a deadly hurricane, the Earls of Athlone, Count John McCormack, and a brilliant bandmaster who performed at the inauguration of six US presidents. Extracted from Past Tracks. Irish translation included.

Founded on the eve of the First World War, Mrs Lawlors Naas-based enterprise was reckoned to be the largest catering firm in Ireland by 1937. From the Dublin Horse Show to the Naas Races to the Grand Prix or the Eucharistic Congress, her tents were invariably to be found serving up to the crowds.

The story of one of Ireland's most enigmatic sporting stars who became a household name in the 1950s.

In the 1420s, Kilkea Castle in County Kildare was considerably extended and improved by the Earls of Kildare who would become the most influential dynasty in Ireland by the end of the century. With the Tudors came a sensational but disastrous rebellion that would bring the FitzGerald elite to the brink of extinction.

In terms of source material, as well as the persons acknowledged here, I salute the …

The Kilkea Castle book was a deep dive into the history of the FitzGerald family, as well as many other remarkable people and families associated with it. In the historical process, consultation is key. I was blessed by a magnificent cast of kind and supportive hands to help me shape, enhance, verify and enrich these tales.

The FitzGeralds would face no end of challenges during the opening decades of the 20th century with two tragic deaths and the loss of a huge portion of their ancestral wealth. However, with the birth of the Irish Free State, Kilkea Castle in County Kildare remained home for many FitzGerald sons and daughters through both wars until 1961 when sold by the 8th Duke of Leinster.

By 1305, Sir John Wogan was the most influential man in Ireland. As a reward, King Edward I of England gifted him Kilkea Castle and its manor lands. The property was also of much interest to the FitzGerald family, now Earls of Kildare, who were partly descended from the de Ridelesfords. Meanwhile, the Pale itself soon became one of the bloodiest battlegrounds on the island of Ireland.

Following the Cambro-Norman conquest of Leinster in the late 12th century, the lands around Kilkea and Castledermot in County Kildare were granted to Walter de Ridelesford, a man with strong links to the Knights Templar. The original stone castle – once among the most formidable in Ireland – was built by Hugh de Lacy in about 1180. Within a hundred years, the manor had been divided between Walter’s female heiresses, Christiana De Marisco and Emmeline Longespée, which would bring the House of FitzGerald into the mix.

During the late 17th century, Kilkea Castle in County Kildare was occupied by a series of well-to-do families while the FitzGeralds prepared to move to Carton. In the century thereafter, the dissolute Henry Dixon and the duplicitous Tom Reynolds did not bode well, and Kilkea would be the scene of high drama during the 1798 Rebellion, with Lord Edward FitzGerald centre-stage. Ultimately, it would find calm under the Caulfields before the FitzGeralds resumed control of Kilkea once more.

Notes on the sinking of a ship, on which John La Touche and General Daniel Corneille, former Governor of St Helena, owned some of the goods on board.

A lesser known branch of the Irish family whose members include the mistress to one of George III's sons, one of Australia's most celebrated clockmakers, a brilliant pianist, a Victoria Cross winner and the landlord of the Yellow-Lion Inn in Carlow Town, as well as a cameo by the creator of Big Ben.

A working document about the townland south of Lisnavagh and east of Haroldstown, including Tobinstown School and the old pub.

A branch of the Bunbury family lived at Johnstown House outside Carlow town for most of the 18th and early 19th century. This account looks at such characters as the travel writer Selina Bunbury and the pioneering postmaster Sir Henry Noel Bunbury, as well as connections to the Irish Volunteers, William Pitt, Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, Oscar Wilde, the Conellan family and sub-branches in Liverpool, Essex, Miami and Cuba.

Like Paddington Bear, the Past Tracks project came to life on a railway platform. In …

A chronological account of the bachelor Thomas Bunbury, eldest son of William Bunbury III of Lisnavagh and his wife Katherine (née Kane), taking in the tragic deaths of his father and sister, his time at Oxford, his connections to Bath and his role as an MP and magistrate in County Carlow on the eve of the Great Hunger.

William was the great-grandson of the first Bunbury to settle in Ireland. He married the heiress  Katherine Kane, shortly before he was elected MP for Carlow in Grattan's Parliament. He was planning to build a new house at Lisnavagh when he was tragically killed in a horse accident in 1778. After his death, his widow took the family to live in Bath until their eldest son, Thomas, was old enough to return. William's posthumous daughter Jane would produce the future heir of Lisnavagh …

Following the descendants of Mathew Bunbury (1675-1733), fourth son of Benjamin Bunbury of Killerig, Co Carlow, from Tipperary and Kilkenny to Borneo and Australia, including the family of Field Marshal Lord Roberts and Henry Sadleir Prittie, 1st Baron Dunalley.

The life of a Georgian gentleman farmer in 18th century Ireland as he extends his land ownership from County Carlow into Longford and Kildare. Thomas Bunbury was grandfather of Jane Bunbury who married John McClintock of Drumcar, from whom the McClintock Bunbury family descend, and also of Field Marshal Viscount Gough.

The eldest grandson of Sir Henry Bunbury went to North America as an indentured servant in 1660 and became a tobacco farmer in Virginia. His great-grandson Dick founded the Bunberry, or Bumbrey, family, from whom sprang Grace Bumbry, one of the leading mezzo-sopranos of her generation. The family also connect to Abraham Lincoln’s assassin and Ronald Reagan’s near assassin.

William was given the lease on Lisnavagh and Tobinstown by his father in 1695, the year before he married Elizabeth Pendred and commissioned the construction of the original house at Lisnavagh. This page provides some historical context on William's relatively short life, along with some speculations about the first house and its surrounding landscape.

A grandson of the original Benjamin Bunbury of Killerrig, William (known as Billy) inherited Lisnavagh at the age of six, following the premature death of both his parents. He would preside over Lisnavagh for the next forty years, during which time he helped fund the construction of the Protestant church in Rathvilly. This chapter also looks at his sister Elizabeth Bunbury and her connection to the Lockwood, Minchin and Carden families.

The etymology (ie: origin) for the names of the streets, bridges, docks and other landmarks of Dublin. This is mainly focused on the docklands area as it is based on work I did for my 2008 book, ‘Dublin Docklands – An Urban Voyage’, which was commissioned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority

Descended from a younger son of Benjamin Bunbury of Killerrig, this branch settled in the region of the River Barrow in County Carlow. One ran The Bear Inn in Carlow. Another was a wine merchant on Bow Street, Dublin, who intermarried with the Mill family, wine merchants of Exeter. This marriage brought them to Marlston House, Berkshire. Family members include a leading diplomat in New Zealand, a Governor of St Lucia and a Privy Chamberlain to Pope Pius XI, as well as the ancestors of the Versturme Bunburys and the Guyana branch.

‘What's great about golf is that you can start when you are four years old and you can play forever. You don’t get injured and it keeps you active. I’ve got friends of eighty years of age who jump out of bed in the morning to play a round. And they are marching! That’s living proof that there’s a long life after forty.’

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin   Eureka!   Born …

A brief look at the townlands just west of Lisnavagh and their association with families such as Gilpin, Gorman, Elliot, Lowry, Kehoe, Bryan, Carroll, Leary, and Murphy, as well as Viscount Allen, John Drought and the Bunburys, plus the discovery of the Ballybit Pot in 1861. 

An unusual branch of the family, whose stars included Henry Bunbury (described by contemporary as ‘an agreeable oddity') and his son Thomas Charles Bunbury, who campaigned for Daniel O'Connell in the 1830s. 

A chronology of events, mostly related to Egypt, some of which may have had a long term influence or impact on the evolution of Christianity in Ireland and, therefore, Europe.

The story of a branch of the family that came of age after the relief of Derry in the Williamite Wars of the 1690s, only for inconceivable tragedy to come in the form of a triple homicide on the eve of the Second World War. With a brief account of the McFarland family who bought the house outside Carrigans, County Donegal, in 1954.

A family with several Victoria Crosses and a Field Marshal to their name, the Goughs started out as clergymen in County Limerick before becoming imperial warriors with the British Empire.

Benjamin Bunbury was one of the younger sons of Thomas Bunbury of Kill but the death in a horse fall of his older brother William propelled him into the deep end as he took over the running of Lisnavagh, as well as Moyle and Killerrig, on behalf of his young nephew. He earned himself a reputation as something of a diplomat during the 1798 Rebellion but narrowly avoided being murdered by the Finnegan gang shortly before his death at the age of 72 .

This is a lesser known branch of the Bunbury family, connected to Ballyseskin in the barony of Bargy in County Wexford. The founder of this branch may have been a Cromwellian officer, even if other Bunburys fought for the king, and its descendants include Walter Bunbury, MP for Clonmines in the reign of Queen Anne, and his formidable wife, Dame Elizabeth.

In 1824, an Abstract of Answers and Returns pursuant to Act for taking Account of Population …

Musings on the Carlow townland. Does anyone have any information on the Tankard family, sometimes Tancred, of County Carlow?

The pub and the pen have always gone hand in hand, especially in Dublin. That’s why the city is so celebrated for its playwrights and poets and authors from Jonathan Swift to Oscar Wilde to Flann O'Brien to Sally Rooney. That's why Dublin is a UNESCO City of Literature, with an annual Book Festival; why three of the bridges that span the Liffey are named for writers; why it offers one of the richest literary prizes in the world; why Dublin was home to all four Irish-born winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature and why it has connections to all six of Ireland's Booker Prize winners. This story explores the pub side of things.

By the time you combine all the Irish or half-Irish who served in the British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and US armies during World War One, there was probably more than quarter of a million soldiers. As to the number of Irish-born died, 36,000 seems to be the increasingly accepted figure. My book a collection is not a definitive book of Irish involvement in the war. It is simply a collection of Great War stories with an Irish twist

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Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Kerry’s past.

John McClintock, who inherited Drumcar House, County Louth, in 1855, launched a series of mostly unsuccessful campaigns to represent County Louth at Westminster. He served just one term from 1857-9, but he caught the eye of Benjamin Disraeli and was created Baron Rathdonnell in 1868. This story follows his life and times, his links to the Bunbury family, and his marriage to Anne Lefroy.

During the Golden Age of the 1890s and early 20th century, Ireland’s tennis stars racked up nine Wimbledon titles (4 x men’s, 1 x ladies, 2 x men’s doubles and 2 x mixed double’s) as well as two Olympic Golds, the Australian Open, the US Open and, effectively, the Davis Cup. This is the story of some of those remarkable players.

In 1813, 13-year-old William McClintock Bunbury joined HMS Ajax as a first-class volunteer, participating in his first sea battle the following year. Over the next two decades he would rise through the naval ranks and travel astonishing distances across the southern hemisphere. Most of this was on board HMS Samarang, a sister ship of HMS Beagle, and Charles Darwin was never far away. Meanwhile, as William IV succeeded George IV, and slavery is abolished, there is pile up of family tragedy in store … 

Hailing from Cambrai in French Picardy, the Lefroy family arrived in England as refugees during the French Wars of Religion. Having prospered as silk merchants in Canterbury, two branches emerged. The Irish branch included Tom Lefroy, famed as the love interest of Jane Austen, before he became Chief Justice of Ireland. The English branch were based at Ashe in Hampshire where they were again closely affiliated with Jane Austen's family. Among the family were the first Lady Rathdonnell and the surveyor Sir John Lefroy.      

A brief account of a polar explorer from Bray who never came home, and whose memory is enshrined in the name of Greenland's Hand Bay.

A family who rose through the hierarchy through their astute understanding of finance, property and agriculture, culminating with John Foster’s election as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and his elevation to the peerage as Baron Oriel. With 6,500 acres at Collon, Dunleer and Glyde Court, County Louth, the head of the family also became Viscount Ferrard and Viscount Massereene, inheriting Antrim Castle. Includes the philanthropist Vere Foster and Lady Bess Foster, part of the Duke of Devonshire’s ménage à trois with Georgiana.

Grafton Street, Ireland's main shopping boulevard, started life as a small, medieval cattle track that wound alongside the east bank of the Stein, the river that now flows underground between St Stephen’s Green and Trinity College. This account tells the tale of five Georgian houses running from 96-100 Grafton Street, as well as the Turkish Baths and 5 Grafton Street, and who their occupants were, including Weir's and the company that inspired Bono's name. It also provides a detailed listing of occupants of all houses on Grafton Street, compiled by Belinda Evangelista in 2023.

Powerscourt House is one of the most famous Georgian houses in Ireland. Built in the 1740s, it was devastated by fire in 1974 but subsequently rebuilt. The estate takes its name from the de la Poer family who built a castle here in Norman times. In 1608, the property came to the possession of Sir Richard Wingfield, a prominent general in the English army. This story of their descendants included one of Lord Byron’s closest friend, a man who hosted George IV to dinner and Sarah, Duchess of York. The Slazengers of Powerscourt are closely related to the present Viscount.

How the debacle of the Mesopotamian Campaign in World War One shaped the Irish Revolution's most successful guerrilla commander.

‘The Glorious Madness’ explores the lives of some of these people – including nationalists, nuns, artists, sportsmen, poets, aristocrats, nurses, clergymen and film directors – whose lives coincided with one of the most brutal conflicts our world has ever known.

Nobel Souls   Sandymount has close ties to not one but two Nobel Laureates. W.B. …

What’s in a Name?   The Curragh plains were formed at the end of the …

New Versailles   Walter Bagenal (1670–1745), the founder of Bagenalstown, already had an estate of …

Margaret Behan Dunne (1806-1891), the postmistress of Kildare Town, had two remarkable nephews. Johnny Behan served as Sheriff of Cochise County in the Arizona Territory during the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, while Paul Boyton was a showman known as the Fearless Frogman, who navigated over 25,000 miles of rivers and waterways in a pioneering rubber suit.

The story of Betty Scott, who started work at Lisnavagh as a parlourmaid in 1941 and was the housekeeper from 1959 throughout my young life until she retired in 2007. Without Betty's influence, the Vanishing Ireland project would never have happened.

An alternative history that covers 13,000 years in 36 stories that are often left out of history books. Among the characters profiled are a pair of ill- fated prehistoric chieftains, a psychopathic Viking, a gallant Norman knight, a dazzling English traitor, an ingenious tailor, an outstanding war-horse and a brothel queen.

‘Bunbury's pacey but well-researched narrative is addictive … The research that underpins the short and engaging biographies delivers credible detail. His book is a delightful read … history at its most vibrant.’

“His patriotism and enthusiasm had a marked influence with his people, and when Father Phelan was in the zenith of his powers, Rathvilly was looked on to by the entire Co Carlow for light and leading. He was a patriot in the best sense of the word, and his love of country and people was second only to his love of God.”

The dramatic tale of the Stronge family from their arrival in Ireland on the eve of the siege of Derry through to the brutal murder of Sir Norman Stronge and his son James by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1981.

See also Notes on Kanturk O’Callaghan of Banteer House, Clonmeen O’Callaghan of Bannagh, Kanturk O’Callaghan …

The Drummer’s Kitchen   60 Rosemount Avenue, Haromonstown, was the childhood home of U2’s co-founder …

Located on the River Dereen, this 350 acre townland includes the beautiful Haroldstown Dolmen, while neighbouring Ballykilduff appears to have been home to a Bronze Age settlement that was first charted by a drone in 2018. Closely linked to the nearby monastery at Acaun, its past owners include two former Lord Chancellors of Ireland and an eccentric newspaper man. It was also the scene of an appalling eviction of 173 tenants in the 1830s, including numerous widows.  

AP: Assistant Priest. CC: Curate. PP: Parish Priest Parish Priests Years Native of Born Ordained …

Consistently ranked among the world’s top resorts, Ballyfin’s history reaches back to an age when the O’More chieftains dominated the surrounding lands. Its story encompasses multiple families – Crosbie, Pole, Coote and Wellesley – with Iron Dukes, bounders and heiresses in the mix, as well as its tenure as a Patrician school and its remarkable restoration in the present century. In 2024, it was voted the No. 1 Resort in Ireland & UK by Travel + Leisure Readers.

See also: Notes on Dalkey, County Dublin.   Postcard Pioneer   Evelyn Wrench (1882-1966), a …

Winifred Letts published a series of remarkable war poems during the First World War, in which she worked as a physiotherapist and nurse. The Dublin-based author also wrote poems for the Cuala Press, published children's books and penned a play staged by the Abbey Theatre.

The scandals that rocked Irish banking in the 19th century were little different to those of more recent times. In each case the men responsible – some rascals from birth, others corrupted along the way – attempted to absolve themselves on the basis that they had not expected things to turn out so bad, that the gambles they took had simply back-fired, that everyone else was doing it so why couldn’t they …

In 1758, Thomas Bunbury of Kill, County Carlow, married Susanna Priscilla Isaac, daughter of the County Down barrister John Isaac. Their descendants would hold properties such as Holywood (Hollywood), near Hillsborough, County Down, Seafield House, near Donabate, County Dublin, and Lisbryan (Lisbrien), County Tipperary. Among them were Thomas Bunbury, Bishop of Limerick, and other lines that sprang up in Jersey and Mozambique.

No man has a more encyclopaedic knowledge of the sport than Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh. He appears to know who won every championship, and the accompanying scores, since the GAA was founded 126 years ago. ‘Well, I keep an eye on things, he says bashfully.

For over 300 years, Cork Harbour had been a cornerstone of British defence in the Northern Atlantic, one of the most fortified harbours in the world, protected by a ring of stone forts and bombproof Martello towers…

The stories of Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly, the Shackleton Gardens, Luttrellstown Castle, the wrestler Stephen Farrelly, a strange poisoning and a remarkable barrister.  Irish translations follow below.

Looking at the family who lived at Magherymore (now spelled Magheramore), near Wicklow Town for a number of generations, and their connections to the US state of Georgia and Cambridge University. Their home is now a St Columban nursing home.

An astonishing lesson in leadership from the Irishman whose attempt to cross the Antarctic by land left him with the immense challenge of leading his 27 crewmen on a godforsaken adventure through the world's most hellish waters and an uncharted mountain range.

NB: See also Notes on Clondalkin and Fonthill. St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne   St Cuthbert …

What’s In A Name?   Developed as a completely new street in 1885, Tara Street …

A dynasty whose bloodlines interlink across multiple generations from their origins in the Huguenot stronghold of Portarlington, County Laois, to Wicklow, the Dublin Docklands, Meath and the distant lands of the USA and Australia. George Halpin, the ‘Founding Father’ of Irish lighthouses, constructed 53 lighthouses around the Irish coast, and did much to shape Dublin Bay and the Liffey. His nephew Captain Robert Halpin laid the Atlantic cable, while the article brings us to the present-day with the inventor, engineer and MacArthur fellow, Saul Griffith.

The Black Castle   In 1176, the land on which the Black Castle stands was …

The Dunboyne Scholarship   A succession crisis for the Barons Dunboyne yielded useful dividends for what …

The Diver’s Baths   The nearby Blackrock Baths were once Ireland’s most fashionable place to …

The First Lady’s Cousins   Richard Nixon was one of the most controversial US presidents …

The Potsdam Giant   Ten Irishmen are reported to have served in the Potsdam Giants, an …

The Artist   Mildred Anne Butler (1858–1941), one of the greatest painters of her time, …

Between 2020 and 2023, National Hunt horses that ran at Naas also won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the King George VI Chase, the Aintree Grand National, the Cheltenham Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, the Cheltenham Triumph Hurdle and the Queen Mother Champion Chase, twice. On the Flat, they also scooped the Epsom Derby, the Epsom Oaks, the English 2,000 Guineas, the English 1,000 Guineas, the Melbourne Cup and four Breeders’ Cups.

This little piggy is part of a remarkable collection found in a limestone cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. It’s a Sulawesi pig, warts and all, painted with vivid red ochre over 45,000 years ago, making it one of the earliest known artworks produced by human hand.

One of the most remarkable figures in early medieval Irish history, Turlough was one of just two O’Connors to reign as High King of Ireland, holding the throne for an impressive 35 years. His cores strength was a vast fleet that dominated Irish waterways. Away from war, he also built numerous bridges, redirected two Irish rivers and endeavoured to establish Tuam as a New Jerusalem.

  From ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions’ by Turtle Bunbury. …

The post-war years were dominated by Vincent O’Brien who saddled three Grand National winners, as well as Cottage Rake (who won three consecutive Gold Cups) and Gold Cup winner Knock Hard. All five of those horses honed their craft at Naas.

The Formative Years – Tom McClintock Bunbury (1848-1929) would become probably the most influential member of the Irish branch of the family in history. This section looks at his childhood, his Eton education, his time in the Scots Greys, the death of his parents and sisters, his marriage to Kate Bruen and his position as heir apparent to his uncle, the 1st Baron Rathdonnell.

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin   Don Patricio   …

The stories of the Hollywood beauty who starred in the Tarzan movies, the scullery maid who became a baroness, a Great War air ace, the woman who composed India’s national anthem, a regiment known as the Devil’s Own and the inspiration for Chris O’Dowd’s ‘Moone Boy.’ Extracted from Past Tracks, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

John Huston at Courtown House. Illustration: Derry Dillon. Hollywood Royals   Courtown House, just south-west …

What’s In A Name?   The townland of Phibblestown was renamed ‘Hansfield’ by Hans Blackwood, …

The Versturme-Bunbury family descend from the 1829 marriage between Anne Elizabeth Bunbury, a descendent of the Bunburys of Cranavonane, and Captain Louis Versturme of Berkshire. They include the North North and Bunbury North family, and a number of people who became influential in Kenya during the mid-20th century.

Quaker Quarter   Arguably the most influential family in Clara’s history were the Goodbodys of …

St Brigid in Killester   Kilbride Road refers to the ‘church of Bride’ as in …

Bringing the story onwards as Naas Racecourse evolves in the face of the Great Depression, the Betting Tax and the outbreak of the Second World War.

I met Niall in a swimming pool. He told me he’d grown up on the Curragh and listening to marching bands inspired him to become a drummer. I slowly worked out that he was a professional drummer who had performed alongside Bob Geldof for years, as well as Johnny Logan and Westlife. My admiration for Niall mushroomed when I realised that he showed up at that pool every morning because he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and he was utterly determined to outfox the brute.

There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.

In 1956 the Academy Award-winning actress from Philadelphia achieved what many deemed a fairytale dream when she married Monaco’s Prince Rainier. There hadn’t been an Irish woman on a throne since Grace O’Malley who was not just Grace’s namesake but also came from Mayo. This is a short account of those Mayo roots back to Strong John Kelly and how the currach rowers of Clew Bay connect to two multi-Olympic medal winning cousins.

Portrait interviews with 44 of Ireland's leading sportsmen and women, probing the question as to whether they were simply born to greatness or was it all about how much they trained and a certain degree of luck.

Tim became heir apparent to Lisnavagh and the lordship of Rathdonnell, after his brother Billy was killed in the Anglo-Boer War. As a young man, he was Private Secretary to the Governors of Ceylon and Fiji, and the High Commissioner of Australia. A key figure at the Imperial Institute, he served in the war in East Africa, Italy and Carinthia, now Slovenia. His only child was my grandfather.

Dismissed from the British Army after a court martial in 1823, Kane moved to Moyle, Kellistown, County Carlow, where he became one of Ireland’s principal cattle breeders. From 1865 until his death aged 97 in 1874, he lived at Rathmore Park, also in Carlow. Although he died unmarried, it seems that Colonel Bunbury did not die without issue: hence, the Kane Smith. Also into this colourful mix can be added Willie Wilde, brother of Oscar, and Vera, Countess of Rosslyn, as well as the late architect, Jeremy Williams.

Timmy and Patsy have been best friends since childhood, despite the complications of one being Protestant and the other Catholic. ‘He went that way to school and I went that way,’ explains Patsy, and the two men roar with laughter for a moment or two. Patsy then said the single most unlikely thing anyone said to me during the entire Vanishing Ireland project: ‘I knew Colonel Gadaffi’ …

From ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions’ by Turtle Bunbury.   …

Over the course of 2007 and early 2008, James Fennell and I visited every county in Ireland bar Leitrim, popping our heads into an estimated 700 pubs. We undoubtedly missed a heap of brilliant pubs but we returned home with 70 pubs photographed. We subsequently showcased 39 of those in the book, The Irish Pub, published by Thames & Hudson.

Lainey Keogh was born on 20th September 1957 in Old Town, north Dublin, midway between …

See also Notes on Kilcock, here. United Irishwoman   The novelist and playwright Katherine Frances …

Plantation owner Hugh Mill Bunbury of Guyana (Demerara) was born in Devon and moved to the West Indies as a young man. His daughter Lydia was disinherited for marrying the French Romantic poet Count Alfred de Vigny. His son Charles commanded the Rifle Brigade and married Lady Harriot Dundas. One grandson was Privy Chamberlains to the Pope, as well as heir to Cranavonane, County Carlow. Another was the much-decorated businessman, Evelyn James Bunbury.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Down’s past.

  As featured in The Irish Times Magazine, Saturday July 5th 2008. AN EPIPHANY is …

An overview of an extraordinary sporting event that took place three times in the 1920s and early 1930s by Brian Hopkins, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Lancaster University.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Tyrone’s past.

Season 1 Season 2 From Glacial Origins and Tuatha de Danaan Names to the Early …

Strabane owes much of its early prosperity to the construction of a 4-mile canal from the tidal waters of the Foyle, completed in 1796.

The underground of any city is replete with the possibilities of another world. Think of the darkly magical catacombs of Edinburgh or Rome, or the abandoned Tube lines under London. Many of the legends of a subterranean Dublin riddled with interconnecting tunnels are codology. The Irish capital is too wet for a decent underground, resting upon reclaimed marshland, but there are nonetheless some tunnels worth knowing about …

An epic saga that follows the descendants of an opportunist farmer who became the principal baker to Oliver Cromwell’s troops in Ireland through to a murder in 1917. We meet one of Dean Swift’s greatest foes, families such as Bligh, Fownes and Bunbury, and a host of literary greats including Percy and Mary Shelley, Thomas Moore, John Wesley and Patrick Bronte.

A quick overview of the Bunbury baronets in England, including the Jacobite supporter Sir Harry Bunbury and the family of Sir Charles Bunbury, Admiral of the Turf, and Henry William Bunbury, the artist.

Humans have inflicted unbelievable cruelty on animals over the course of time. One thinks of the Colosseum where a million animals are said to have perished in the name of human entertainment. The spectacle came of age again in the medieval period with Hapsburg aristocrats leading the way.

Back in 1815, few Irishmen were as famous as Dan Donnelly. Over the course of his short lifetime, the Dublin-born boxer was to defeat several British champions and, or so it was rumoured, to have been conferred with a knighthood. In death his fame did not desist because his famous right arm was fated to become one of the most macabre showpieces of the Georgian Age.

Perhaps the most remarkable women to serve in the Royal College of Surgeons during the Easter Rising, Rosie was a woman of such unbending resolve that Dublin City Council chose to name a city bridge in her honour in 2013.

The text version of Turtle's collaboration with Waterways Ireland in which he explores Ireland’s natural rivers and lakes, as well as the man-made canals that criss-cross the island. This starts with the geology and archaeological legacy of Ireland's waterways and how, the Blackwaters aside, almost every Irish river is named for a goddess of the mythical Tuatha de Danaan. I then delve into the spiritual aspects of the waterways with the onset of Christianity.

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin, including Howth, Sutton, Kilbarrack, …

A guest post by Alan Clegg about the sad fate of an emigrant family from Borris-in-Ossory, County Laois, when they reached Australia.

See also: O’Callaghan of Bannagh House, Kanturk O’Callaghan of Clonmeen and Duhallow Notes on Kanturk …

There have been O’Callaghan’s in Bannagh for hundreds of year. On the eve of the 1641 Rebellion, for instance, Donough O’Callaghan, ‘Irish Papist’, claimed ownership of 144 acres in Banteer. However, by 1670, those same 144 acres were registered to a Captain Walter Yelverton. 

The O’Callaghan family were traditionally headquartered in castles at Clonmeen and Dromaneen, as well as many smaller strongholds. After the 1641 Rising, they lost much of their power and lands. In the 18th century, Cornelius O’Callaghan usefully converted to the Church of Ireland and managed to reclaim some of the former O’Callaghan territory. Both the Banteer and Bannagh branches would appear to descend from Cornelius.

Thought to be the inspiration behind Oscar Wilde’s famous ‘Bunbury’, Jack Bunbury was a remarkable oarsman who won many trophies for Eton and Oxford. He also enjoyed acting, not least during his service with the Royal Scots Greys in the 1870s. His life spiralled when he was caught up in the Land Wars, after which he moved to England. The death of his only son, aged 11, in 1892 was followed by his own premature demise a year later. This account also looks at his wife Myra, of the famous Watson hunting dynasty, and her second husband, Baron Max de Tuyll.

Between 1142 and 1270, the Cistercian Order built 38 abbeys in Ireland from which, at their peak, they owned almost half a million acres in Ireland, including 48,000 acres at their mother-house, Mellifont Abbey. Famed for their agricultural prowess, the Cistercians were particularly adept at bringing sheep's wool to the markets of Flanders, by which means they became a corporate megastar – closely affiliated with the Knights Templar.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Laois.

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882), aka JND, was a hugely influential figure in the history of Protestant Christianity. In 1832, he co-founded the Plymouth Brethren, an evangelical group of travelling preachers who believed strongly in the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Offaly.

An epic and sweeping saga of Stone Age genius, Normans warriors, Georgia gentlemen and noble revolutionaries in the Wicklow Mountains, homing in on the Ryves, Pennefather and O'Flynn families.

The Corkagh demesne has been in existence since at least 1326 when listed as part of the Archbishop of Dublin’s manor of Clondalkin. A modest castle existed here in the medieval age followed by a farmhouse constructed in about 1650. This section looks at the turbulent 17th century when both house and lands passed through a series of families such as Mills, Trundell and Browne before being were settled upon the Nottinghams, kinsmen of the Jacobite dynasty of Sarsfield.

Over the course of his 83 years, Herbie wrote almost 120 books, of which he sold over 10 million copies in at least 50 countries. He was my mentor and my friend. You never quite knew what would happen next when he opened his mouth to speak, what strange story he would reveal …

The Night of the Big Wind was the most devastating storm in recorded Irish history. The hurricane of 6-7 January 1839 made more people homeless in a single night than all the sorry decades of eviction that followed – a hurricane so powerful that the Atlantic waves are said to have broken over the top of the Cliffs of Moher.

The Founder of Tillystown   Tillystown is named for Benjamin Tilly, who lived at Chantilly …

Lola Montez was one of the most famous dancers in Europe in the 1840s. Her love affair with the King of Bavaria brought him crashing down before she embarked upon a new life running a literary and social salon in California. This tale follows the rise and fall of this tempestuous Irish woman, charting her romance with Franz Liszt and her encounters with Richard Wagner, Hans von Bülow and Alexandre Dumas. 

Rathvilly and Tullow Railway Stations opened in 1886, along with Baltinglass railway line extension to both places. The arrival of the railway opened Rathvilly to new horizons, connecting it with the wider world and ushering in an era of modernity.

Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey are considered three of the greatest literary classics of all times. The three novels were published in 1847 by the brilliant Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne. This is the lesser known story of their father, an Irish clergyman from County Down, and the Heathcliff-like story of his ancestors, as well as a look at Charlotte Brontë's connections to Banagher, County Offaly.

The Knights Templar have captivated people’s imagination ever since the Order was founded in 1119. One of the most powerful forces in Europe for almost 200 years, their initial purpose was to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. In Ireland, they had manors and banking preceptories across Leinster, as well as anchorage for ships from Waterford Harbour to Galway City to the north-west coast. Their fall was astoundingly dramatic.

Three parishes and circa 74 townlands across the island of Ireland are named after eskers, ridges formed in glacial times. This article offers a few thoughts on how and why some of Ireland’s present-day roads have been used for several thousand years.

In 1645 Gerard Boate, a Dutch physician, compiled a book he called ‘Ireland’s Naturall History, …

It is said that the first of the family to come to Ireland was an Alexander McClintock who arrived in Donegal 1597. A mercenary, perhaps, who fought during the Nine Years War? And yet it seems more likely he arrived as part of a settlement arranged by Bishop Knox of Raphoe circa 1620s. The first known McClintock home was a farm at Trintaugh near the River Foyle. They built the nearby church at Taughboyne. This page seeks to flesh out what we know of these early settlers.

Prior to the 1840s, giving birth to a child, or having a limb amputated, or a bullet extracted, or tooth removed, all had one thing in common. Profound levels of pain. To the immense good fortune of future generations, humanity worked out how to rectify or substantially reduce such agony with the creation of two anaesthetics that swept across the world in 1847, chloroform and ether.

There is gold in Irish hills, as evidenced by recent finds on the Armagh-Monaghan border, Slieve Glah in County Cavan and the Sperrins Mountains of County Tyrone. Ireland’s rapport with gold actually began about 4,000 years ago when the Bell-Beaker people arrived in from Europe, heralding the so-called Bronze Age. 

The Rev. John Schultz was a notorious German clergyman who married over 3,000 couples in Dublin between 1806 and 1837. Such marriages were often conducted in secret, perhaps because the couple were of mixed religion, or the bride was pregnant, or there was family disapproval, or simply to keep the costs low.

The story of Richard and Pat Nixon's visit to Ireland in 1970, how they met, his connections to Kildare and Antrim, and her visit to meet her Ryan and Naughton kinsfolk near Ballinrobe, County Mayo. 

An account of the gung-ho surgeon from Blackrock, County Dublin, who became physician and friend to the fallen French Emperor during his exile on the island of St Helena.

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin, including Kilbarrack, Harmonstown, Sutton, …

Click here for other stories about County Carlow places such as Tobinstown, Killerrig and Clonmore. …

St Cuthbert (c. 634– 687) was one of the most revered saints in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom …

The stories of the Arklow munitions factory, a 1920s party animal, an Olympic Gold medal winner, a spy called Agent ZigZag, a lady mariner, the man who made Jefferson presdient, and an old world cure for Charles Stewart Parnell's wounded hand. Extracted from Past Tracks. Irish translation included.

The stories of the poet laureate who asked Paddy Kavanagh to be a spy, a 1,200 year old Round Tower, a gentleman farmer who drove across Dublin’s Ha’penny Bridge, a plethora or writers and boxers, and a devastating explosion at a gunpowder mill. Extracted from Past Tracks, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin, such as Clonsilla – …

Born into a Presbyterian family in Belfast, Lewis initially supported the Unionist cause but was so shocked by the execution of the Easter Rising leaders that he paid closer heed to the nationalist cause. He filmed many remarkable events from the period and did much to polish Michael Collins’ public image. In 1919, Lewis teamed up with the English film pioneer Norman Whitten to create film Aimsir Padraig / In the Days of St Patrick. His work can also be seen in George Morrison’s pioneering Irish language film Mise Éire, and its darker sequel, Saoirse.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Antrim’s past

The Lagan had long seemed an intelligent trade route for the merchants of East Ulster, …

The story of the 7.2km navigation designed to connect the boggy coal fields of Drumglass at Coalisland, County Tyrone, to Dublin City via Lough Neagh, the Bann and the Newry Canal.

Opened in 1742, the 18.5 mile Newry Canal was the first summit level canal in Britain or Ireland, a blueprint for future designs. Its purpose was to enable coal to be transported from the coalfields of County Tyrone coalfields, via Lough Neagh, to the wealthy homes of Georgian Dublin.

Looking at the life of an Irish clerical family whose best known members include John Disney, sometime Mayor of Galway, and Catherine Disney (1800-1853), a love interest of mathematician and astronomer Sir William Rowan Hamilton. 

The Grange   Most of present-day Donaghmede and Clongriffin falls within the 451-acre townland of …

Tom Cruise’s real name is Thomas Cruise Mapother IV. And he’s got so much Irish in him that he was awarded a Certificate of Irish Ancestry in 2013.

The story of a Galway-born military commander who briefly went missing while flying over Africa …

The story of a courageous and fiery priest from County Mayo who sought to end landlordism, evictions and evangelical conversion of Catholic children in the 19th century and who was alleged to have stolen the famous Cross of Cong, one of Europe’s most valuable treasures. The cross was almost certainly commissioned in 1123 by Turlough Mór O'Connor, High King of Ireland.

The impressively versatile Turtle Bunbury is known for his sensitively written, well-observed Vanishing Ireland series of books and his appearance on RTE’s Genealogy Roadshow. He has an eye for irony and pathos and a fluid attractive writing style …

Showcasing works by Dionysios Tsokos, Ford Madox Brown, Pavel Fedotov, Richard Airey, Antoine Wiertz, Charles Lees, David MacDonald, Friedrich Nerly, Thomas Websiter, John Everett Millais, Thomas Couture and others.

The stories of a multi-millionaire opera singer, a remarkable Georgian lady, an ancient highway, the most powerful politician in 20th century Ireland, a Sunday morning assassination and how the Radisson Blu was once given as a prize to a victorious general. Extracted from Past Tracks, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

Looking at the Bunbury family during the 100 Years War and the Wars of the Roses, including a timely sickie on the eve of Agincourt.

The Side-Switcher   Charleville was named in honour of Charles II who was restored to …

Looking at the American Invasion Tour’ of 1888, the Tailteann Games of 1924-32 and the Thunder and Lightning Final of 1939.

The Brabazons came to prominence during the Tudor conquest of Ireland when Henry VIII dispatched the shrewd Sir William Brabazon to Ireland as Vice-Treasurer. He established the family at Killruddery and his grandson was created 1st Earl of Meath in 1627. Over the next 300 years, the family would consolidate their influence in Wicklow, Ireland and the wider world of the British Empire.

Born in County Cork, in 1834, Eliza Lynch became the lover of Francisco Solano López, the president of Paraguay. In this essay, Turtle made the ground-breaking revelation that her father Dr John Lynch, died of a fever contracted in 1840 ‘in the discharge of his professional duties’ at the Charleville Dispensary and Fever Hospital.

A lesser-known branch of the Bunbury tree is a Roman Catholic family of that name who lived in Ardnehue and Benekerry, near Johnstown, County Carlow, during the 18th and 19th century, from which outliers spread into Liverpool and Australia, and possibly Wisconsin and New Brunswick.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Galway’s past.

The Christmas Truce of 1914 has become one of the most iconic events of the war, a moment when British and German soldiers met in the killing fields of No Man’s Land to play a football match on Christmas Day. The only hiccup is that, sadly, historians are now unanimously agreed that this match never happened.

‘A fascinating canter through Irish history … gripping stories and great insight.' (Sunday Independent) … ‘Cannot give enough praise for this wonderful coffee table publication' (The Irish Field) … ‘A magisterial history … the most impressive publication relating to any aspect of Naas history yet to appear in the 21st century.’

In April 2024, Willie became the first Irish-based trainer to win the UK Jumps Trainers Championship since Vincent O'Brien in 1954. A month earlier, he became the first trainer in history to score 100 wins at the Cheltenham Festival. He's been in the saddle since he could toddle. This is an interview from 2010, when he was already an equestrian superstar.

Descended from two great Catholic Irish families, the More O’Ferralls combined with the marriage in 1751 of the Balyna heiress Letitia O’More and the Dublin banker Richard Ferrall. During the 1840s, Sir Richard More O’Ferrall emerged as a great champions of religious toleration and independence.  Balyna is an exclusive hotel near Enfield, County Kildare.

A short account of the love that bloomed between Michael Collins and Kitty Kiernan, including an extract from the last letter she wrote to him before he was shot dead on 22 August 1922.

Replete with episodes of brilliance, ingenuity, serendipity and success, this sweeping story tells Maxol’s fascinating story from the formative years of the McMullan family through the drama of global wars, oil crises, political conflict and economic hardship to its present-day responses to climate change, Covid 19 and technological advance.

Captain Whitfield Greenwell of Corbridge and Elrington in Northumberland was the son of Nicholas Greenwell …

A very tall, music-loving German aristocrat signs a treaty with the chiefs of the Penateka, or Honey Eaters, one of the fiercest bands of Comanche warriors in Texas. Under the terms of the 1847 treaty, the Germans and the Comanche agree to scratch one another’s backs in the wilds of Comancheria. The treaty transpires to be one of precious few agreements made with native Americans that was never broken. It also leads to the establishment of an extraordinary, proto-type hippy commune at Bettina settlement.

An especially accomplished branch of the family, descended from Harry McClintock, Collector of Customs at Dundalk port and uncle of the first Lord Rathdonnell. Harry's son Leopold would find lasting fame as the man who discovered the fate of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition, while another son Alfred became Master of the Rotunda. Leopold's children included a naval veteran of Gallipoli, a Royal irish Constable and a New Zealand emigrant, while his grandson was one of the great keepers of Irish language literature.  

Joe Biden is arguably the most ‘Irish' president to have occupied the White House. He enjoyed an especially successful visit to Ireland in April 2023, his third since 2016. This is an ongoing exploration of his engineering forebears and his ancestral roots, including affiliated lines of the Scanlon, Blewitt, Finnegan, Arthur, Boyle and Roche families.

Hugh Gough commanded in more battles than any other British soldier of the nineteenth century save for his fellow Irishman, the Duke of Wellington. This included his victories in the Opium War and the Anglo-Sikh Wars. His mother was a Bunbury.

Between 1916 and 1929, Leonard Hutcheson Poe (1888-1929) was the agent at Lisnavagh and lived in Germaines.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Kilkenny’s past.

The jury is still out as to whether or not the corridors of Mount St Joseph became any noisier after Vatican II. The return of the voice had to be weighed against the ever diminishing number of monks walking through the monastery every passing year. ‘Very few enter nowadays,’ concedes Father Laurence.

Huge thanks to John Glynn for the short video of the late Johnny Byrne which …

  Robert Fulton, inventor, Kilkenny roots – see here.   Henry Archer of Jenkinstown, in the …

‘Earn a shilling a day and live upon sixpence’. That was the motto of a remarkable entrepreneur from Italy whose energy, perseverance, punctuality and good humour made him the transport king of Ireland in the 1820s and 1830s. A friend of Daniel O’Connell, he became Mayor of Clonmel in 1845.

An Efficacious Spa   For over 200 years, Castleconnell was celebrated across Ireland for its …

Irish links to Albany since the late 17th century. This page includes what is surely the most comprehensive list of Albany-linked Irish-Americans online, thanks to Belinda Evangelista.

From ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions’ by Turtle Bunbury.   …

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Tipperary’s past.

The story of the man who founded the famous brewery at St James's Gate in Dublin, including his ancestral link to the MacCartans of County Down, the controversy of his birth in Celbridge , his bequest from Archbishop Price and his marriage to the heiress Olivia Whitmore. 

In 1534, Silken Thomas FitzGerald flung down his Sword of State and renounced his allegiance to Henry VIII. This was the opening gambit of a rebellion in which FitzGerald attempted to capture Dublin Castle, only to be executed in London, along with five of his uncles, on what was possibly the blackest day in the long, epic history of the FitzGerald family.

This branch of the main Lisnavagh family initially settled between County Tipperary and Connemara. Descendants include a man who held the world record for shorthand writing, the Borneo settler for whom the Bunbury Shoals are named and the unfortunate Molly Bunbury who was murdered by her doctor husband in 1886.

Located just east of the Lisnavagh farmyard, Acaun is the smallest of Carlow County's 603 townlands. This account considers the origins of its monastery, mill-race and castle and touches on its connections to people such as Alice Kyteler, Bishop Ledred and Edmund Butler, Earl of Carrick.

The builder of Drumcar House, John McClintock was one of the most prominent MPs during the age of Grattan’s Parliament, serving as MP for Belturbet and Enniskillen between 1783 and 1797. He was also Chief Serjeant of Arms to the Irish Parliament (when his wife’s cousin John Foster was Speaker of the Irish House of Commons) and Treasurer of the Northern Rangers. This story also takes in the remarkable tale of John Suttoe, a black man who worked for the McClintocks and married Margaret O’Brien from County Louth.

Ballyvolane is one of the most admired guest houses in Ireland. Built by a former Chief Justice of Ireland, past occupants of the County Cork mansion include a butler and a maid executed for murder and a nationalist politician who vanished without trace. Owned by the Green family since 1953, its recent guests have included Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. This history includes a piece I wrote for National Geographic Traveller.

Looking at stories of the sculptor John Henry Foley, the beautiful Montgomery sisters, the 1916 leader James Connolly, the eccentric Earls of Aldborough, the boundary wall around the Custom House docks and one of Europe's biggest red light districts.

It was a proud day in the history of Scotshouse. On Saturday 14 August 2009, …

The stories of Ernest Shackleton, a saviour ape, a Scottish invasion of Kildare, a World War One hero, a bare knuckle champ, amongst others, from the very first Past Tracks panel – installed in 2019 and illustrated by Derry Dillon. Nationwide filmed an episode with Turtle guiding viewers through the panel. 

The ancestry and descendants of the Rev. Alfred Rudall, Vicar of St. Agnes in Cornwall, including the Clara Schumann link and the remarkable story of his nephew Lieutenant Alfred Rudall and Eva Halpin.

Paddy Guerin is one of Ireland's oldest publicans. His pub offers perhaps a dozen different seating arrangements, flowery sofas, quirky bar stools, upturned half-casks, railway benches, church pews, rough wooden tables, everything different. ‘I’m like a crow', he says. ‘I pick up things. Everything is borrowed, never given back or stolen’.

Random notes on a family said to descend from a William Bobbett who came to Ireland from Brittany in 1650. He reputedly swam ashore near Swords after a shipwreck and settled in the area.  By 1834, they were renting the lands of Hedgestown [Hodgestown], County Meath from the Marquis of Lansdowne. They became prominent in the Clonsilla / Blanchardstown / Hansfield / Porterstown area.

The son of a Carlow man, Baker designed the Forth Bridge in Scotland and the Barrow Bridge in Ireland. He was also the consulting engineer on the building of the Low Aswan Dam on the River Nile.

‘As a man, I've always felt Irish. As an actor, I've always felt Jewish.’ So declared Harrison Ford who, born in Chicago in 1942, was the grandson of John Fitzgerald Ford, an Irish Catholic émigré.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Mayo’s past.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Westmeath’s past.

Kitty Ievers, my father’s great-aunt, married Bertram de Glanville, chairman of the Colombo Port Commission in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the 1930s. The following insights into the de Glanville / Glanville family focuses on Bertram and his half-brother, Sir Oscar de Glanville, who had an fascinating, sometimes controversial and ultimately tragic career in Myanmar when it was a part of the British Empire known as Burma.

This index – a work in progress – was originally compiled in 1996 by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. This list covers almost all of the Rathdonnell archive. 

Considered one of the finest governors of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the island's history, Sir William's legacy is complicated by the appalling treatment of Tamil labourers, as well as the Gregory Clause in Ireland during the Great Hunger. His wife was the famous Lady Gregory.

When the ancient Egyptian cartographer Ptolemy sketched his map of the known world some 1900 years ago, he sketched the Howth Head peninsula on the north side of Dublin Bay as an island. Some hold that Howth was also known to the Phoenicians. Here are a dozen highlights from Howth's history from ancient deer to Russian mutineers, the famous gun-run to a lesser known hero of 1916.

The family fortune floundered when one extravagant individual kept 29 hunters and coach-horses in his stable, and always drove with four horses in his coach, but, on the positive side, the hymm-writer C F Alexander, Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein and Field Marshal Lord Alexander of Tunis were all part-McClintock.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Fermanagh’s past.

John McClintock of Trintaugh, County Donegal, was the third surviving son of John and Janet McClintock of Trintaugh. A favourite of his older brother Alexander, which irked his other brother William of Cappagh, he was father to 13 children including Bumper Jack McClintock of Drumcar, Alexander McClintock of Seskinore and Anne McClintock (grandmother of the 1st Baron Lisgar).

  Thomas Kane McClintock Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell, died at Lisnavagh on 22 May 1929, …

During the 18th and 19th century, some of the lands at Lisnavagh and Tobinstown in County Carlow were rented by the Germaines, a family of Huguenot extraction who are said to have built several houses on the land. A rather unsettling story claims that, following the Tithe Wars, Philip Germaine was evicted and his property razed to make way for the new house at Lisnavagh … could this be so?

Arthur Thomas Bruen, a younger brother of Lady Rathdonnell, was agent at Lisnavagh and served with the Royal Army Service Corps in the war.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Wexford’s past.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Longford’s past.

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin, including Raheny, Howth, Sutton …

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin, including Howth, Kilbarrack, Bayside …

In 1709, just over 3,000 mostly Protestant refugees from Germany's Palatine region sailed for Ireland. Their descendants include the families of Switzer, Wyse, Keppel, Cooke, Young , Embury, Miller, Teskey, Baker, Poff and Gleasure. This article looks at the origins and impact of that Palatine emigration.

Following the fortunes of a family who arrived in Ireland with Cromwell’s army and scooped up estates in Cavan and Kildare, as well as the Earldom of Leitrim. Nat Clements, one of the great architects of Georgian Ireland, built the Irish President’s residence in Phoenix Park. Also looking at a branch of the family who emigrated to Massachusetts, where they became embroiled in the Salem Witch Trials.

The Alexander family emigrated from Scotland to Ireland with the plantations of the early 17th century and prospered as merchants in Limavady, Londonderry and Dublin. The most successful family members was James Alexander, who made his fortune as a nabob of the East India Company in India in the 1770s and became the 1st Earl of Caledon. Other descendants include Field Marshal Alexander of Tunis, a Primate of All-Ireland and the milling Alexanders of Milford, County Carlow.

Every time I walked back to the apartment, I went a different way. I’d learnt that it doesn’t matter which way you go in Monte Carlo. You’ll still get there. So long as you know the approximate location of the place you are heading to, all you need to do is fasten onto an angle and walk with dogged persistence in that direction.

The Holroyd-Smyth family were descendants of the Smyths of Ballynatray. Lady Harriette Holroyd-Smyth was a daughter of Charlotte, Countess of Mount Cashell, whose father was the last of the Smyths to own Ballynatray. 

Looking at the connections to Caisleán Cnucha, Finn MacCool, the crusader Hugh Tyrell, the Lady in White, the siege of Castleknock Castle, a remarkable German jockey and other tales. 

Click here for further tales of Dublin City and County Dublin What’s in a Name? …

[These are notes rather than a carefully researched tale.] On 3 July 1215, Thomas Fitz Anthony, …

The Rogers family have been breeding first-class stock for at least six generations, winning multiple Classic horse races as both breeders and trainers. Before they turned their attention to horses, they bred cattle. During the Victorian Age they were in the first rank of Britain’s Hereford cattle breeders.

He stands by a stone wall, sporting a Texan hat given to him ‘by an old girlfriend last summer’. He puffs on his pipe and thinks for a while. At length, he scratches his chin and says ‘No, I’d say all the old timers are gone now.

John Toler (1745-1831), 1st Earl of Norbury, was the most feared Irish judge of the Georgian period. Among the numerous men and women he sentenced to hang were Robert Emmet and the 1798 leaders Henry and John Sheares. He rose to become Chief Justice.

Stories of Sinéad de Valera, a heroic sea rescue, Queen Victoria’s favourite stockings, a saint who kept bees, an emigrant who led one of the gangs of New York and the enterprising Baron Hamilton, amongst others.

Born in present-day Nigeria, Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797), aka Gustavus Vassa, was one of the first black abolitionists to visit Ireland, calling in at Dublin, Cork, Belfast and ‘many [other] counties …. I was every where exceedingly well treated by persons of all ranks.'

The two austere, six-storey, cut-stone mini-skyscrapers of Bolands Flour Mills at Grand Canal Docks appear to have been built in the 1830s by Thomas Pim, an enterprising Quaker. In 1873 he sold them to Patrick Boland, owner of the nearby Bolands Bakery. By 1911, 202,779 barrels of flour were being ground annually by 40 milling stones, making it one of the largest mills in Ireland.

The stories of one of Ireland's most successful presidents, the origin of the town ‘Font', a pioneer of showbiz in Chicago, the engineering ancestors of Joe Biden, a leading opponent of slavery and a strike by schoolboys seeking an end to corporal punishment and Wednesday's off. Extracted from Past Tracks 2021, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

Turtle's comprehensive history of Dublin's inner city docklands (the Custom House Quays, the North Wall, East Wall, Westland Row & the South Quays, the Grand Canal Docks, South Lotts, Poolbeg and Ringsend), frequently updated.

‘I’m not sure we will ever get the same recognition as men’, sighs Cora Staunton. …

Originating in Estonia and Sweden, the de Robecks came of age during the American War of Independence and the Napoleonic Wars, while Admiral de Robeck was one of the principal figures in the Dardanelles campaign of the First World War. Other family members have been pivotal to the success of events such as the Punchestown races, the Kildare Hunt and the Dublin Horse Show.

The lesser known Irish connections to a former black slave who wrote ‘A Narrative of the Life of Benjamin Benson, Emancipated by the English Government, August 1, 1838, and Subsequently Sold as a Slave in the United States of America,' published in 1847.

William Desmond Taylor was 49 years old when a fatal bullet ploughed into his back in 1922. The murder of the popular Irish film director was to become one of the greatest unsolved crimes in Hollywood history. Perhaps, as he lay dying in his bungalow in downtown Los Angeles, he had time to think back to the childhood he spent in County Carlow in another century and another world.

A branch of the Donegal family who made their mark in Pennsylvania, including the McClintock Slave Riot of 1847, when John McClintock was accused of instigating a riot that resulted in the rescue of a number of fugitive slaves

The Fureys   The Fureys, one of Ireland’s best loved folk bands, was formed by …

Originating in Norfolk, the Yelvertons rose through the ranks in England to become, at various times, Baron Grey de Ruthyn, Earl of Kent and Earl of Sussex. Another branch moved to Ireland where Viscount Avonmore was a leading legal eagle in the Georgian Age. This takes in such events as the celebrated Yelverton v. Longworth case and explores connections to Blackwater (Cork), Portland and Belle Isle (Tipperary), and Whitland Abbey (Wales). Also covered are an early American connection and influential Australian emigres Charles Yelverton O'Connor and Henry John Yelverton.

The story of a graduate of Cambridge, a landed proprietor of Clare, an inventor of diving bells and a veteran of the Spanish Republican army who served as Daniel O'Connell's right-hand man for 24 years.

The story of a remarkable Irishman, born without arms or legs, who became an explorer and member of parliament, as well as a huntsman, sailor, photographer and father of seven. 

The Saint   In 1920, a teenager named Jimmy Walsh claimed that the Virgin Mary …

An overview of one of the most towering figures in Irish history, a pioneer of pacifism through his monster meetings, and winner of emancipation for the top level of Catholics in Irish society. This story commences with his role in a deadly duel, a fatal event that haunted him for the remainder of his life.

Dr Bartholomew Mosse was the founder of Dublin’s Rotunda Hospital, the first purpose-built maternity hospital in the world, which opened in 1757. This highly motivated surgeon and man-midwife achieved his ambition through his immense gift for corporate fundraising: running lotteries, staging concerts and productions in the theatre, including a number of Handel's oratorios.

The Casino Model Railway Museum in Malahide, County Dublin, is home to probably the greatest private collection of miniature railway engines, wagons and carriages in existence, largely thanks to the genius of Cyril Fry and Tommy Tighe.

In 1821, when the new king commenced an 18-day visit to Ireland, the scandal-mongers of London homed in on the new leading light in His Majesty’s bedchamber – Elizabeth, Lady Conyngham, the chatelaine of Slane Castle, County Meath.

A mercy mission from Boston, the bells that rang out for Laurel and Hardy, Sonia O'Sullivan and a remarkable Titanic survivor are among the cast on Turtle's panel in Cobh railway station, illustrated by Derry Dillon, translated by Jack O Driscoll.

I was utterly elated by the first review of my 2021 book, ‘The Irish Diaspora,’ from BBC History Magazine, the UK’s biggest selling history magazine: ‘This fascinating assortment of case histories, spread across 1,400 years and six continents, is an impressive feat of research … The summaries of often-complex historical background to the lives explored are models of lucid compression.' Here's some further detail.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Limerick’s past.

The beautiful Mary Josephine Coughlin, known as ‘Mae’, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1897, the daughter of Michael Coughlin and Bridget Gorman of County Cork, Ireland. Al Capone's father was Gabriele FitzGerald Capone … so there seems to be Irish a-plenty on both sides.

Carlow, Ireland, Sunday 13th February 1814, 9am. The explosions that shocked many of the town’s …

The Big Snow of 1947 was the coldest and harshest winter to hit Ireland in living memory. However, there have been many other severe winters in Irish history, from 1315 through to 1963 and 1982. This is a look at all those white-outs when time stands still.

In the summer of 1847 the young German army engineer Werner Siemens secures a contract from the Prussian Army to lay a subterranean telegraph line insulated, at his suggestion, by sap from the Malaysian gutta-percha tree. By October the innovative genius has established a telegraph company in Berlin that will evolve into the present-day global telecommunications and engineering giant, Siemens AG.

In his second collaboration with Adare Manor, Turtle traces the swift and remarkable voyage that has established it as one of Ireland’s principal culinary landmarks, the Oak Room's Michelin Star being confirmed again in 2024.

Turtle Bunbury’s 2020 book traces Adare Manor’s journey from its origins as a medieval manor house in County Limerick to its 21st-century status as a multi-award-winning, luxury five-star resort and venue for the 2027 Ryder Cup.

Queen Victoria was the illegitimate daughter of an Irishman. At least that was the sensational …

The contents for the book ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions', published in 2023.

Random notes on a Derry Haberdasher who became a 1798 Patriot before his flight to Chillicothe, Ohio, and of a Captain James McClintock who was adjutant of the Derry Militia.

Steve was 8 years old when he had an epiphany at the Corinthian Boxing Club. ‘There was a tournament on and they put me on and I won and I got such a buzz that I said “I’m going to be World Champion”. My dad got a bit worried. He thought “there’s something missing in that kid”.’

Marseilles started life as a safe haven for Greek sailors before Julius Caesar conquered it for Rome. In 1792, the city roared ‘Viva La Revolution!’ and sent 500 volunteers to defend Paris. Turtle visits the city, as well as Aubagne, the HQ for the French Foreign Legion, and the Calanques.

Sir Walter Raleigh was one of the most one of the most enigmatic adventurers, soldiers, …

The tale of a remarkable man, a Catholic in Queen Elizabeth's army, who was tipped to be Viceroy of Ireland until he allied himself with Catholic Spain and became intricately involved with the Babington Ploy, the Spanish Armada and the ill-fated Gunpowder Plot orchestrated by Guy Fawkes.

OVERVIEW: THE BUNBURYS 1066 – PRESENT The Bunbury family descend from the Norman baron de …

According to legend, the mighty bluestones used to form the stone circle of Stonehenge in England were spirited across the Irish Sea from Kildare by no less a soul than Merlin the magician. Far-fetched, assuredly, and yet there is something so extraordinarily mysterious about Kildare’s ancient past that even fictitious wizards must be treated with respect. 

Thomas Bunbury is the first of the family with a proven connection to Ireland, being trustee of Lismore Castle for his half-brother Sir William Stanley in 1585. Thomas was a son of Henry Bunbury, Lord de Bunbury, and his wife Margaret Aldersey. He  succeeded his father to Great Stanney in 1547. His wife Bridget Aston was the scion of a prominent Catholic family.

Search the History Quarter by County, by Historical Era or by Category.

The list on this page provides links to most of the 300 (or so) family histories that Turtle has delved into – mostly Irish or Anglo-Irish, but also Irish-American, Australian, Canadian, British, British colonial, Danish, Swedish, Dutch and Russian. Turtle sets each generation into the context of the historical events and characters they would have encountered.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Waterford’s past.

Alex Findlater, who died at the age of 81 after a riding accident in Jaipur, was one of the most determined, fun-loving, charitable men of his generation. It was in his blood. As chronicled in his immensely readable book, ‘Findlater – The Story of a Dublin Merchant Family,’ his forebears were Scots excisemen who founded the Dublin wine and grocery firm in 1823.

With 22 townlands covering almost 10,000 acres, the parish of Rathvilly has a history that stretches back to earliest times. In this talk, Turtle provides an overview of this rich tapestry, documenting everything from dolmens and ringforts to the 1980s band In Tua Nua.

‘It was a new world,' says Eamon, of the 1960s. ‘The farmers still needed to repair their ploughs and grubbers and the harrows and the grills that kept the cattle in. But they also needed us to work with the tractor and all the implements that followed, to adjust them or put a piece onto them or, if they were broken, to fix them.’

Ireland's largest outlying island is also one of its most magical.. If you've only got time to gaze out a moving windscreen, then a tour of the island shouldn't take more than an hour. But it is better suited to day-trippers, with numerous options for silencing the car engine and making further investigation.

The burning of two Irish ‘big house' jewels during the Irish Civil War, including the 7th Earl of Mayo's detailed account.

The FitzGeralds rose from the ashes with the remarkable return of the Wizard Earl of Kildare in the 1550s. Despite a litany of premature deaths, his successors managed to ride out the turmoil of the 17th century intact, extending Kilkea Castle in County Kildare along the way. The castle also served as a Jesuit novitiate for 12 years before being extended in the 1660s. In the 18th century, the great-great-grandson of the Fairy Earl would become the first Duke of Leinster.

‘You hear the young people say “I’m going down to the village?” That’s what they call Inchicore. But I never knew it to be called “the village” and I was born and reared here. It was like a village, but we called it “Inchicore”.’

Her lightning pace certainly made defences fraught … the ‘sheer speed and power’ of this ‘deceptively diminutive’ player made her ‘virtually unstoppable’. Always within 15 to 20 metres of the goal, dominating from the puck out and firing countless cracking shots between and over the posts.

An interview with Ireland's most successful female Jessie Harrington was named The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year for 2017 after a remarkable year in which she trained Sizing John to win the Leopardstown, Cheltenham and Punchestown Gold Cups, won the Irish National with Our Duke, and enjoyed her best ever year on the Flat. This interview took place in 2011.

‘I worked from eight in the morning until nine at night, pressing and ironing shirts, or cleaning and pleating coats for the nurses at Vincent’s Hospital. The money was very bad and it was hard work … Ah, there’d always be dancing. Ballroom dancing on the street corners – one, two, three and a hop.’

‘We’re unclaimed treasures, all of us. They say that only the mugs get married and the best china is left on the top shelf.’

‘There’d have been a lot of animals around here when I was young. You’d always hear the pigs squealing. One of my neighbours had ducks who would go mad anytime it started raining.’

A cast that includes the extraordinary Dutch SOE operative Door de Graaf,  the homeopathic surgeon Dr Drysdale, the German novelist Wilhelm Christoph von Polenz, a bailiff of Clithero, a pioneer of the Arts and Craft movement (John Gorges Robinson), the directors of Craven Bank and my great-grandmother's family.

The contents page for Turtle's book ‘1847: A Chronicle of Genius, Generosity and Savagery' (Gill Books, 2016).

Return to 1847 Contents   Guayaquil, Ecuador, Monday 2 August 1847 The mission must be …

This remarkable family produced no less than eleven Freemen of Dublin over the years. The most celebrated member was Chief Justice Lord Kilwarden, a patron of Wolfe Tone, murdered during the Emmet Rebellion of 1803. A high profile marriage to the fashionable Lady Charlotte Hutchinson produced no heirs, while another heir was slain in action against the Mahdi in Sudan. This article also looks at General Wolfe who captured Quebec, and Charles Wolfe, the poet who wrote the famous elegy on the death of Sir John Moore

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Derry / Londonderry’s past.

It was not the first time the German bombers had struck. The previous summer, when the nurses first arrived at Vertekop, there had been three air raids. This was one was so much worse. Seventeen bombs fell on the Red Cross hospital that morning. When the dust settled, two nurses and four orderlies lay dead. For Nurse Annie Rebecca Colhoun, Macedonia had been an extraordinary contrast to her Irish childhood.

The vampire cult owes an enormous amount to Irish writers such as Bram Stoker (Dracula), Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla) and Thomas Crofton Croker, not to mention Abhartach, a psychotic dwarf chieftain from Donegal.

In 1882, Patrick Bermingham purchased a two-room grocery bar on Ludlow Street, Navan, and converted it into perhaps the most splendid Victorian pub in County Meath. The pub is now run by the Marmion family, cousins of the Berminghams, who have kept the original name proudly gilded on the exterior, framed by stone walls, wrought iron rails and dark oak panelling.

Wells were of paramount importance to the people of Ireland who flocked to them for supernatural protection, respectful of the water’s ability to cure. There must have been endless disappointment but, nonetheless, the early Christians adopted these wells which were, in time, rebranded as ‘holy wells’ (Tobar Beannaithe) or ‘blessed wells’ (Tobar Naofa).

The contents page for Turtle's best-selling book Ireland’s Forgotten Past, published by Thames & Hudson.

An inordinate number of curious, brilliant and dreadful events took place during 1847. It was a year of immense discord that paved the way for so much migration, conquest and turmoil that the planet is still recovering. And yet there was progress and harmony too, played out on pianos and banjos, on broadsheets and telegraphs, as our ever-shrinking world learned more about itself than it had ever known before.

1847: A Chronicle of Genius, Generosity & Savagery   To my wonderful sister Sasha, who …

From ‘The Centenary of Naas Racecourse (1924-2024) – Nursery of Champions’ by Turtle Bunbury.   …

Kevin Barry’s short life was full of firsts. He was the first person executed since the Easter Rising of 1916 and, as such, the 18-year-old medical student was the first person to be executed in the War of Independence. This story looks at his upbringing between Dublin and County Carlow (where he was at school in Rathvilly), his work as a Volunteer, his fatal role in the Monk’s Bakery raid and the world-shocking events of his execution.

The defence of Rorke’s Drift in South Africa has captured the imagination since the moment the battle was over, not least with the 1964 movie ‘Zulu’. It marked a rare moment of redemption in the Anglo-Zulu War, one of the more shameful episodes in British colonial history. Upwards of 30 of the defenders were Irishmen.

A potted history of a fabulous ruin in north-east County Carlow, with its link to one of the combatants at the battle of Bannockburn.

In the medieval period, rivers and lakes were the principal highways that people used to get around. However, what happens when a darker force gains access to those same waterways? A force whose sole game-plan seems to be to raid and plunder and generally go on the rampage? The Vikings would be one of the most powerful influences on Irish life for the bones of 400 years.

What impact did the Vikings and the Normans have on Ireland’s inland waterways? How did Turlough O’Connor earn the moniker ‘King of the Water’? How did the Knights Templar use the waterways during the Anglo-Norman invasion? Those are some of the questions Turtle tackles in the second series of the ‘Waterways Through Time’ podcast, launched in May 2023.

‘Did you never hear of the Wag of the Wall?’ asks Christy, somewhat incredulously. ‘It was the first clock to come along after the Sun Dial. It had a big, long pendulum with chains and two weights. A man brought one into me once … it had been lying idle and there was no wear on it. I got it going beautiful for him and he was delighted.’

There are 67 confirmed round towers in Ireland, where at least a part survives, as well as 23 sites that are generally accepted to have ‘once’ been home to a round tower. Could their original purpose have been astronomical?

Once home to the Bunbury family, Kill House (Kilmagarvogue) later passed to Edward Murphy, an Irish nationalist. His son Bill died fighting alongside Tom Kettle at the Somme – the Captain Murphy Memorial Hall in Tullow is named for him.

The Rock family from Dublin were awarded the Dermot Earley Family Award in the 2022 GAA Presidents Awards. The award honours the superb and long standing impact the Rock family have had on GAA life in the capital. Joe Rock was a Croke Park legend prior to his death at the age of 90 in 2016. A grand uncle of Dublin All-Star forward, Dean Rock, Joe worked at Croke Park since the age of six, looking after the dressing room and tunnel areas for the biggest games of the year. He told me of his highs and lows, including shadow-boxing with Al “Blue” Lewis and picking orange peels off the ground as a young fellow.

One of the weirdest hazards of the modern age is that we have so much data, statistics, opinion and spin that discourse is splintered between all the individual media corporations and the umpteen thousand websites purporting to tell the truth. Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? And who is telling the verirtas?

Dublin would not have been possible without its bridges. It’s all too easy to forget that this is a city built upon rivers and bordered by a wild and tempestuous sea. They’ve been building bridges in Dublin at least since Norman times but the old bridges, made from wood and clay, invariably collapsed and washed away.

The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 was the biggest in recorded history – 1000 times more powerful than the Iceland’ic eruption in 2010, which caused the largest air-traffic shut-down since World War II. In 1815, the cloud of ash and sulfate gasses billowed up to a height of nearly 30 miles, plunging the wider East Indian region into darkness. It would bring on a dreadful summer the following year.

In 2001, I was lucky enough to spend a week as a guest of this 93-year-old grande dame, collector, philanthropist at Casa Leon, her wonderful home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Evelyn and her late husband Joe Lambert were icons of Dallas and Venice in the 1960s and 1970s.

The story of the Cuffes of Desart Court in the Irish county of Kilkenny is as sprawling an epic as ever there was. Over nine generations, the family were deeply ensconced in the affairs of Ireland and the Anglo-Irish world. Their rise through the ranks of Great Britain’s social hierarchy makes for a fascinating mirror of the rise of Britain itself, from uncertain nation state to brash and broody empire, culminating in the burning of Desart Court on 22 February 1923.

Michael ‘Ducksie' Walsh, the brilliant Irish handball champion from Kilkenny, died aged fifty in 2016. Just a couple of weeks earlier he had defeated the then No. 1 ranked Eoin Kennedy in the final of the open singles at his home court of Talbot’s Inch. He was probably Ireland's greatest ever handballer.

Choose from topics on this page for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Monaghan's past. 

And then Barry McGuigan strolled into the sunlight, plucked a microphone from its stand and launched into ‘Mustang Sally'. It was the Flat Lake Festival in County Monaghan and, as the first couples began to shimmy up for a dance, everyone agreed that the Clones Cyclone sure is possessed of a mighty fine voice.

‘Refereeing can be a lonely business … It’s about establishing a foothold of control. If players are transgressing, I have to try and persuade them to think a bit differently.’

Rosemary Smith, the most successful female rally driver in Irish history, tells how her triumphs in the 1960s began when she mastered driving on the potholey highways of old Ireland, and why she was once obliged to reverse 33 miles up the Khyber Pass.

The author of ten novels and over 100 short stories, Elizabeth Bowen was one of the most remarkable writers of her generation. She was also my grandmother's first cousin and, arguably, best friend. I once found her CBE in my sock drawer and my mother inherited her typewriter. This is an account of her life, and her many loves, which I add to as new reflections strike me.

The man who punched Bernard Levin live on TV, in front of 11 million viewers, was also a brilliant Spitfire pilot during the Second World War. As well as his first marriage to the stage actress Agnes Bernelle, Desmond Leslie made his mark as a scriptwriter, music composer and, perhaps most famously, as a passionate advocate for the existence of flying saucers and alien life.

In 1919, one of the most magnificent events in history occurred when Captain Alcock and Lieutenant Brown crash-landed into a Connemara bog. The duo had just flown 1,880 miles from Newfoundland. Not only was it the longest distance yet flown by man but it was also the first non-stop trans-Atlantic flight between America and Europe.

John Grenham has been pioneering genealogical research for, well, it’s getting close to a few …

Return to The Irish Pub Contents On New Year’s Eve 1993, I had the great …

Should you chance to look out the window of this aeroplane while traversing over the Irish countryside, you might amuse yourself by counting the number of castles you can see. This island is awash with castles, arising every which way you look and often when least expected …

Stories of Adamstown Castle, the Lucan Formation, the Great Esker Highway, Charles II's saviour, aviation pioneer Darby Kennedy, 1798 icon Napper Tandy and how the Duke of Leinster dug the Great Southern and Western Railway line.

Born in 1939, Westmeath farmer Noel Robinson reflects on mixed marriages, emigration, rabbit-hunting, holy wells, and the challenges for farmers in the 21st century. From the Vanishing Ireland archives.

‘When he wasn’t thatching, my uncle was making crill baskets for the donkeys to carry the turf in from the bogs. It was all donkeys at that time. There were droves of them on the mountains.’ A much loved resident of Ox mountain, County Sligo, recalls a life of hunting rabbits, open-top tractors and working with the O'Hara family.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Roscommon’s past.

‘It used to be full of musicians up here,’ he says. ‘On both sides of the river, you’d hear them playing of a Sunday, with the dancing and all. I know there’s lots of musicians in the country now – look at the fleadhs and all the young musicianeers who go there – but I don’t think there’s many around here now.’

In memory of one of Ireland's finest and most distinguished botanical artists.

Andy Duff was based in the Slane stables in County Meath for much of the 1960s where he was the principal jockey for trainer Tony Riddell-Martin. I interviewed him at his home in Slane Village in 2015, alongside his friend Benny McCabe, who was a stable boy at Slane during the Riddell-Martin years.

Giles was one of my father's best friends from his time in the Royal Navy. In 1972, he managed to avoid crashing a Royal Navy Buccaneer jet into East Belfast after it malfunctioned during a routine test flight but his courage came at a cost and he was invalided out of the Navy.

A heroic defence of a Waterford against Cromwell's army earned the Maunsell family respect from the Irish when they first settled in the mid 17th century. During the Georgian Age, they rose to prominence in Limerick, as bankers, politicians and Mayors. In the arly 18th century, they moved to Oakley Park, from where they married into the Orpen family. Today the house is run by the St John of Gods.

My hairbrush once belonged to Alan Drew, my father's great-uncle, who was killed in one of those pointless over-the-top charges in World War One. Prior to his death, Alan taught at Mostyn House (the school near Liverpool where he studied as a boy), learned how to march in Glasgow and spent several years in Shanghai around the time the last Emperor fell from power. Alan's memory was enshrined in a carillon of bells that now rings at Charterhouse School in memory of almost 700 Old Carthusians who died in the war.

It was always said that my great-grandmother Ethel Synge Ievers (who married the 3rd Baron Rathdonnell) was a cousin of the playwright John Millington Synge. This is true, albeit in a rather distant way …

A consideration of the lands beside Lisnavagh, once part of the Bunbury empire, and its association with the Shepard, Nolan, Salter, Browne and Hopkins families, as well as the ancient ringfort.

 Looking at the townlands connections to Sir Walter de Ridelesford (or Riddlesford), Lord of Bray, as well as the Knights Templar, the Fratres Cruciferi of Castledermot and the displacement of the Mac Gormáin or O’Gorman family, and the Bull Ring.

In 1961, the Marquess of Kildare – later the 8th Duke of Leinster – sold Kilkea Castle, his ancestral home in County Kildare, to the Land Commission. There then followed a succession of fascinating owners including an engineer who built most of Northern Ireland’s aeroplane runways, a veteran of the French resistance and the wife of Agent Zigzag, an extraordinary British double agent – as the castle evolved into a health farm and hotel. The castle hotel is now owned and run by Jay Cashman.

The story of the author of the critically acclaimed ‘Castle Rackrent’, a comic masterpiece, and her inventive father, and how Maria came to the aid of the people of Longford during the Great Hunger.

The astonishing story of a Dublin-born gentlewoman, who attempted to assassinate Mussolini when she was fifty years old, and her connection to – and eventual rejection by – one of Ireland’s most distinguished legal families.

Anyone who has watched ‘Father Ted’ can appreciate the genius of Dermot Morgan. Before his abrupt and unexpected death, he was one of Ireland's best-loved comedians. But to understand what made him tick, you need to go back in time. His grandfather, was one of de Valera’s key fund-raisers in America during the War of Independence. His mother was a Dun Laoghaire beauty who taught him the art of mimicry.

JOHN HENRY FOLEY, RA (1818-1874) John Henry Foley was probably the most influential sculptor in …

The stories of the inventor of the torpedo, a global prima donna, a telephone pioneer, the short-lived Republic of Connacht, the inglorious Races of Castlebar, the rise and fall of the Earls of Lucan, and a gentleman who went to the gallows.

The stories of the Earls of Clancarty (who liked UFOs, dancing girls and redrawing the map of Europe), as well as a prominent Australian photographer, a Hollywood star from the 1930s, the battle of Aughrim and one of Europe's oldest fairs. Extracted from Past Tracks, with Irish translations by Jack O'Driscoll.

The stories of a best-selling novelist, Governor of North Carolina, a terrifying hurricane, a giant cake, ‘The Fields of Athenry’ song and a woman who refused to eat. Extracted from Past Tracks. Irish translation included.

With 58 wins at Cheltenham, Ruby Walsh is comfortably the most successful jockey in the Festival’s history.  He was also Irish jump jockey champion twelve times between 1998 and 2017 and, when he retired in 2019, he was the third most prolific winner in British and Irish jump racing history. This interview took place in Thurles in 2010.

Mick O’Connell was the dominant – and most elegant – player in the midfield throughout the 1960s. By the time he retired in 1973, he had played in nine All-Ireland football finals and won four. He also helped Kerry win six National League medals between 1959 and 1972.

Tracing a branch of the family who lived at Athlacca (midway between Adare and Kilmallock), County Limerick, and their connection to the Bolster, Gubbins, Hawkins and Blakeney families.

A branch of the Anglo-Norman dynasty of Butler settled in County Tipperary during the 16th century and became one of the leading cattle farming families of Tipperary Town by the advent of the War of Independence.

Kinsfolk of both Jonathan Swift and John Dryden, the Dennis family fortunes rose with a prudent marriage to a sole heiress, netting them extensive estates in Kerry, Cork and Dublin. Family members include the artist Kathleen Marescaux, the Indian tea magnate Maurice FitzGerald Sandes, radio pioneer Colonel Meade Dennis and General Meade Dennis, who served as principal artillery commander under Montgomery at El Alamein. Fortgranite, their family home, was sold in 2019.

Turtle attends the bicentenary of Hans Christian Andersen's birth in Copenhagen, and fetches up being winked at by the Queen of Denmark.

A line of descent from the McClintocks of Drumcar with links to the Curragh Mutiny, the Lonsdale who became Baron Armaghdale, the Tynan Hunt, the Stronge family, a scandalous elopement, the Land Commission that followed the Wyndham Act, and the death of a father and son who were both wartime pilots.

Many things about the housekeeper at the General Post Office were remarkable. Take, for instance, …

Sergeant James Graham, born in Clones, was regarded by contemporaries in 1815 as ‘the bravest man at Waterloo'.

An epic tale that brings the Galvin family from rural Ireland to faraway lands where they live and perish in Australia, New York, Peru and Chile, with a nod to the Valparaiso earthquake and the Galvin brothers role in bringing rugby to Chile.

Choose a county from this list on this page to home in on stories of people, families, events and buildings from each area.

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Armagh’s past

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Cavan’s past

‘He was still 13 miles from home, with 3 right turns, 2 left turns and 6 straight through cross-roads for the horses to negotiate by automatic pilot … This was a regular occurrence and the lead horse never went astray and Johnny never work up until he reached his own yard.' A recollection by John Headen, publican, of the late Jimmy Bolger's homeward voyage from the pub.

THERE WAS AN OLD MAN CALLED EDWARD By Turtle Bunbury As he plunged his quill …

As he was pushed through the doors of The George on Dublin’s Bow-Lane, the boy …

These short blurbs were written for a panel installed in the Riverside Maxol station in Navan, County Meath, in 2023. The illustrations are by the wonderful Derry Dillon.

Trim Castle in Co. Meath which is not just the oldest stone castle in Ireland but also the largest of our Anglo-Norman castles. Here Turtle explores its links to such powerful dynasties as de Lacy, Mortimer, Wellesely and the House of York.

Fighter pilots in World War One were the football celebrities of their day, their actions eagerly followed by millions of people in their homelands. The top three air aces in the war were Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock, James McCudden and George ‘McIrish’ McElroy. All three were destined to die in the war. A rather lesser known fact is that all three had strong Irish connections. Mannock was born in Ireland to a mother from Cork. McCudden’s father was born in Carlow and McElroy was the son of a Roscommon schoolteacher.

DR. JAMES BARRY (1789-1865): THE MAN WHO WAS A WOMAN London, 25 July 1865. It …

BOYLES, EARLS OF SHANNON RICHARD BOYLE, THE GREAT EARL OF CORK The family descend from …

Descended from a Cork merchant, the Hare family came to prominence when they bought significant lands in Counties Cork and Kerry in the late 18th century. Convamore, a splendid mansion just outside Ballyhooly, was built in the early 19th century to celebrate their elevation to the peerage. It was burned in the War of Independence. 

Origins of the Pelham Family   The Pelhams first rose to prominence in the Middle …

The Supples were an old Anglo-Norman family, descended from Philippe de Capella (or de Capel), …

THE MUSGRAVE MIGRATION FROM LEITRIM TO CORK A Report by Turtle Bunbury (2012) It was …

JOHN SADLIER (1813-1856) – A VERY SAD LIAR John Sadlier is arguably the best known …

An account of the origins of the McCarthy family, and various branches thereof, plus the miscellaneous and colourful MacCarthy exiles living in France during the 18th century, with reference to the branches at Carrignavar, Gortroe and Spring House.

THE FENNELLS OF BURTOWN HOUSE, ATHY, CO. KILDARE This work is dedicated to the memory …

THE WAKEFIELDS & CHRISTYS OF COUNTY DOWN This family history is a spin-off from the …

Born in 1928, John Carson has lived and farmed at Isle View on the island of Inishmore, County Fermanagh, all his life. Here he recalls fishing for pike, spooky nights and his time with the B-Specials.

I am still unsure of the fort’s purpose, but I am now quite convinced that Dun Aengus was once a circular fort and that a little under half of it has tumbled into the Atlantic Ocean, a wee slide here, a little collapse there.

Inis Mor is the biggest of the three Aran islands, which roll out from the west coast of Ireland, like “a necklace of pearls which God has set upon the bosom of the sea”, as one dreamy monk put it. This was the inspiration for Craggy Island, with its own Tedfest, but it also had a rich and wonderful history.

Irish Daily Mail, Monday 18 October 2010 A huge cast iron cauldron smoulders over a …

By Turtle Bunbury An illustrated version of this article appeared in Playboy magazine in November …

Jack Judge (1872-1938) THE MAN WHO WROTE ‘TIPPERARY’ As the curtains parted in Dublin’s Tivoli …

By Turtle Bunbury (Irish Daily Mail, 4th February 2011) Graham Greene could hardly say the …

Choose from these topics for stories of people, families, events and places connected to County Leitrim’s past.

Strokestown, 1847. A single shot from a blunderbuss echoed into the Roscommon skies. The lead …

The home of Piers O’Conor Nash, nephew of the O'Conor Don, this fabulous Roscommon home holds the Inauguration Stone upon which nearly thirty O’Conor kings of Connaught were crowned. Clonalis was awarded the HHI O’Flynn Group Heritage Prize in 2022. Turtle recounts a visit to the house which he conducted on behalf of National Geographic Magazine.

On Sunday February 16th 1864, Michael McNamara stepped ashore in Melbourne, Australia. The eighteen year …

Crotty’s Pub today is effectively a square. In the bottom right is the main bar, featuring a pitch pine counter, a tiny frost-glass snug and a rare plate glass Smithwick’s Ale & Barleywine mirror. This was the room where Oliver Reed, Richard Burton and Cyril Cusack all drank when passing through. Miko Crotty managed to lure an Italian stonemason working on the Catholic Church to lay most of the floor, save for the somewhat uneven bar area.

At his peak, Red Tom smoked a hundred Sweet Afton a day. ‘I’d get them for nothing,’ he says. ‘Father Michael … be janey mac, every time he saw me going by, he’d say, “Here, hold on,” and throw me three boxes with twenty packs in each.’

Paddy Heaney’s knowledge of the Slieve Bloom Mountains is outstanding. He has made it his …

The following was kindly transcribed by Máirtín D’Alton from Seosamh MacCába’s book, ‘Dúthaí Uí Ríagáin’ …

Raised in Rathdowney, County Laois, Anastatia ‘Statia’ Kealy would live to be 108 years. Her mother was born during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency. This interview took place in 2009. She spoke of the tough conditions of her early years, when six of her siblings died young, but she also exhibited her fabulous sense of humour and what I suspect may be the longest continuously worn pair of earrings in history.

A son of the 4th Viscount Powerscourt, described by his Catholic contemporary as a ‘gentleman … incapable of offering insult to hie fellow-parishioners of the Catholic persuasion.'

The story of a family from Staffordshire in England who prospered in Ireland in the wake of King William's victory at the Boyne, marrying the heiress of wealthy Power family and acquiring the titles of the Earl of Tyrone and Marquess of Waterford. Also told here is the story of Lord William Beresford and Edmund O'Toole, who won Victoria Crosses after an especially close call during the Anglo-Zulu War.

Waterford (aka Vadre-fjord) is the principal seaport and commercial hub of South East Ireland. One of Ireland's most colourful and enigmatic cities, it has become deservedly popular with those seeking to explore the many historical and natural wonders of the south coast.

Once the medieval capital of all Ireland, Kilkenny has today firmly established itself as the nations' liveliest inland city, with non-stop entertainment throughout the sunny season and plenty enough craic on the other 365 days too.

The duty of the arts to bring inspiration and good cheer to the people. Re-ppened in a new venue in 2020, Butler Gallery in Kilkenny is the biggest addition to rural Ireland’s cultural portfolio in recent times. The gallery is named for Peggy Butler, whose husband Hubert Butler is the subject of the Netflix documentary ‘Witness to the Future’. In 2021, Butler Gallery was awarded a prestigious Architecture MasterPrize in the Restoration + Renovation category for the work undertaken by McCullough Mulvin Architects.

The content of Turtle's first book, ‘The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Co Kildare' offer a unique and lively historical insight into some of County Kildare's most influential “big house” families.

Dublin, April 25th 1916. Francis Sheehy-Skeffington could see that the British officer was still alive. …

With 2024 underway, the Irish capital has plenty to offer first-time visitors and indigenous Dubliners alike. Here's 32 of the city's highlights. 

As of January 2022, I have an inventory of (extant or vanished) 3 ring forts, 1 square fort, 1 standing stone, 1 dolmen, 1 monastery, 1 castle, 1 Bronze Age settlement, all located in a small stretch of land running from the summit of Knocknagan to the Haroldstown dolmen, drawing in a little bit of Tobinstown and the townland of Acaun  …. throw in an underground stream, the River Dereen and the mysterious shapes in Bowe's Grove, and the stage is set for yet more sleuthery. 

THE KING’S CONFESSOR   Perhaps the most remarkable baby born at The Rectory in Edgeworthstown was Henry Essex …

The Kilkenny ‘Past Tracks' panel features short accounts of Ellen, Countess of Desart; Hubert and Peggy Butler (of Butler Gallery fame); Lionel of Antwerp & the Statutes of Kilkenny; Jonathan Swift, George Berkeley & Kilkenny College; Martin Renehan – White House Doorman; and the tragic fate of Petronella, servant to Alice Kyteler, burned at the stage by wicked Bishop Ledred. With Irish translations by Jack O’Driscoll.

That great silence which accreted around the extraordinary conflagration of the Great War in so far as it affected Ireland, has been often, ironically, spoken of in our time. But there always has been a trace of the war, silence or no silence, inside, literally, almost everyone in Ireland.

An account of my father's stepfather Major Hugh Caruthers Massy, from orphaned childhood to Prisoner of War, from Gaza to Kenya to Ballynatray, with musings upon his family background and his lovely sister Narcissa.

One of the most celebrated families of the Kildare hunting scene during the middle decades of the 20th century, the Kennedys were direct descendants of Sir John Kennedy, the Father of the Kildare Hunt. Indeed, for much of the 20th century, the area around Straffan was known as ‘Kennedy country’.

In the 1830s, the 3rd Duke of Leinster began a lengthy restoration of his family’s ancient castle at Kilkea in County Kildare, giving it the shape that it has today. For the rest of the century, Kilkea would be home to the Marquess of Kildare. This era, which coincided with the Great Hunger, the Land Wars and the ever-louder call for Home Rule in Ireland, would end with the calamitous – and premature – deaths of the 5th Duke of Leinster and his beautiful wife, Hermione.

The film ‘Albert Nobbs' is based on a story, first published in 1918, by the Irish author George Moore. In 1912, he abandoned Ireland in pursuit of unrequited love in London with one of the richest women in the world. An early critic of the dictatorial behaviour of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Moore was also one of the first writers to seriously address equal rights for women.