Turtle Bunbury

Writer and Historian

 
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IN PROGRESS

In Progress Sub-sections

Vanishing Ireland Vanishing Ireland

A documentary based on "Vanishing Ireland" is now in motion. The series will focus on some of the characters interviewed for the book, along with a number of others who have emerged since. It follows on from the success of the award-nominated "Vanishing Ireland" book by Turtle Bunbury and James Fennell, which featured over 150 hypnotic portrait photographs and interviews with over sixty men and women from across Ireland, providing an invaluable, humorous and often poignant chronicle of a rapidly disappearing world.

Lisnavagh McClintock Bunbury
Since 1990, Turtle has been engaged in writing a detailed history of his own forbears - the McClintock Bunbury family of Lisnavagh - and their affiliated branches. A detailed chronology of the family is to be found here. [ These pages will soon be moved to this site ].

 

Sir Jack Leslie Sir Jack Leslie
Between October 2003 and January 2004, Turtle conducted a series of interviews at Castle Leslie, Co. Monaghan, with Sir Jack Leslie, now 90 years old, who became famous as a disco-dancing octogenarian. Born in New York in 1916, his life has encompassed forty years in Rome and five years in a German POW camp.

The RDS, Dublin The Tribal Elder
Gilbert Butler (1910 – 2002) was one of Ireland’s last Anglo-Irish gentlemen farmers. He was also President of the Royal Dublin Society. His grandson Turtle Bunbury lived with him during the latter years of his life. The story of Gilbert and his wife Noreen Colley, their close freind Elizabeth Bowen and Gilbert's brother, essayist Hubert Butler, is in progress.


Duke of Wellington by Goya 1847
In 1847, Jacob's Creek vineyards and Cartier diamonds were founded, Hong Kong was taken by the British, America went to war with Mexico, the Great Famine reached its lowest ebb in Ireland, Emily Bronte wrote "Wuthering Heights", the Mormons headed for Salt Lake City, Lisnavagh House was built, Jesse James and Bram Stoker were born and the Carlsberg Brewery was established in Denmark. So was 1847 the most remarkable year ever? Probably.