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BIOGRAPHY
Author and historian Turtle Bunbury.
(Photo: Ally Bunbury)
Turtle Bunbury is a best-selling author, award-winning travel writer and historian based in Ireland. He is one of the co-presenters on the 'Genealogy Roadshow', a four-part series which aired on Ireland's RTE1 television channel in August and September 2011. On the weekend of 9-10 June 2012, he will co-host the inaugural History Festival of Ireland at Lisnavagh House, his family home in Co. Carlow, Ireland.
Click here for media highlights from Turtle's career.
Turtle's latest book 'Vanishing Ireland - Recollections of Our Changing Times' was launched in October 2011 and was No. 7 in the Irish hardback non-fiction charts over the ensuing Christmas period. The first two volumes of the 'Vanishing Ireland' series, with photographer James Fennell, were shortlisted for the Best Irish-Published Book of the Year Awards in 2007 and 2010.
Turtle is also the founder of ‘Your History in a Book’, creating thoroughly researched and handsomely illustrated family histories, presented as leather-bound books.
Turtle was born on 21st February 1972 and raised at Lisnavagh, Rathvilly, Co. Carlow, Ireland. He received his early education in Baltinglass, Co. Wicklow, before moving to Castle Park School in Dublin. From 1980 to 1985, he was at Glenalmond College in the Scottish Highlands where he secured the necessary results at A-Level to read law at Trinity College Dublin. He opted to postpone college and go traveling.
At the age of eighteen, Turtle left Ireland for the U.S.A., working his way across the continent from New York to Los Angeles over three months. He subsequently spent six months in New Zealand and Australia, returning to Ireland via Malaysia to commence his legal studies in Dublin. The law did not suit him and in 1994 Turtle merrily transferred to history. He spent one year at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands before returning to Dublin to complete his degree at Trinity in 1996.
Armed with a degree in modern history from Trinity College Dublin, he moved to Hong Kong in 1996 and spent three years working as a freelance correspondent with the South China Morning Post and Business News Indochina. During this time he also experienced an extraordinary period of history while attempting to establish a guesthouse in Cambodia in the same month that Pol Pot was captured.
Turtle Bunbury and James Fennell at the launch of
'The Irish Pub' in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, in 2008.
Returning to Ireland on the eve of the new millennium, he spent two years working with the travel company, Trailblazer.com, an early victim of the Dot Bomb crash of 2002. He simultaneously developed his interest in Irish and world history, contributing articles to magazines and newspapers around the world.
Since 2004, Turtle has established himself as one of the most prolific and energetic writers in Ireland. As well as his ten published books, he has travelled extensively, most notably in the USA, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Australia. His work on Sri Lanka earned him the award for Ireland’s Longhaul Travel Journalist of the Year in 2006.
Turtle's recent books include 'Sporting Legends of Ireland', published in September 2010, and 'Vanishing Ireland - Further Chronicles of a Disappearing World', published in October 2009. Both were shortlisted for major Irish book awards. For a detailed look at Turtle's Books, click here.
As both contributor and subject, Turtle has a rapidly growing media presence in Ireland, Australia, Canada and the USA. He frequently lends his historical expertise to documentaries and shows such as 'Who Do You Think You Are?', 'The Genealogy Roadshow' and 'Wogan's Ireland' where he pondered the drunkeness of the Jacobite troops at the battle of the Boyne with Sir Terry Wogan. In May 2011, he talked about Obama's visit to Ireland with Michael Patrick Shiels on Michigan's Morning Show (1240 WJIM). Turtle is also a frequent guest on 'Nationwide', TV3's 'Ireland A.M.' and Irish radio.
In 2010, he delivered his 'Around the World in 1847' talk to the Princess Grace Irish Library in Monaco (15 February), the Bray Cualann Historical Society (15 April), the Bloomfield & District Residents Association (27 August) and the Friends of the National Gallery of Ireland (9 November).
Turtle's work has been published in The Financial Times, The New York Post, The Irish Times, The Australian, Vogue Living,The Guardian, The World of Interiors and the men's entertainment magazine Playboy.
Turtle Bunbury at Lisnavagh, by Suki Stuart.
As well as being a frequent contributor to The Irish Daily Mail and other national newspapers, Turtle is an increasingly well known name on TV and radio. A regular on RTE1's 'Nationwide', he was also a historical consultant for some of the 2009 series of 'Who Do You Think You Are?', most notably the episode with former Miss World, Rosanna Davison. He was also the consultant and scriptwriter for the BIFF award-nominated 'John Henry Foley - Ghost of the Empire' which first aired on TG4 in November 2008. For a detailed look at Turtle's TV and radio profile, click here.
On May 20th 2006, Turtle married Miss Ally Moore of Bishopscourt, Clones, Co. Monaghan. Their eldest daughter Jemima Meike McClintock Bunbury was born in Our Lady of Lourdes, Drogheda, Co Louth, on 17th June 2007. Their second daughter Bay Hermoine McClintock Bunbury was born in Drogheda on 4th February 2009. Since 2007, the Bunburys have lived on the family estate at Lisnavagh, Rathvilly, Co. Carlow, where they built a new house. The Bunburys moved into Old Fort in July 2008.
In September 2010, Turtle was made a Knight of Justice of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem.
In September 2011 he will spend four weeks in Monaco as writer-in-residence to the Princess Grace Irish Library.