Turtle Bunbury's debut book, “The Landed Gentry & Aristocracy of Kildare”, offers a unique and lively historical insight into eighteen of Co. Kildare's most influential “big house” families. The book features fifty illustrations and covers more than a thousand years of Irish history. The families profiled are those of Aylmer, Barton, de Burgh, Clements, Conolly, Guinness, Henry, Fennell, FitzGerald, Latten, La Touche, Mansfield, Maunsell, Medlicott, More O'Ferrall, Moore, de Robeck, and Wolfe. The story of these often eccentric dynasties is set against the backdrop of the past – the violent religious wars of the 17th century, the rise of the British Empire in the 18th and the run up to Irish independence in 1921.

Read of
· the Celbridge connection to the Salem Witch Trials
· French Tom Barton and the vineyards of France
· the remarkable terrier who journeyed from Forenaghts to Bristol
· the Admiral from Punchestown who led the Dardanelles campaign
· the medieval ape who saved the Earl of Kildare's life
· the assassination of Lord Killwarden
· the bizarre death of Viscount Drogheda
· the Kildare man who attempted to win the US Civil War single handed
· the rise of the Irish Quakers
· the ill-fated rebellion of Silken Thomas
· the Duke of Leinster's romance with Wallis Simpson
· William Conolly, the innkeepers son who became the richest man in Ireland
· the Moyvalley man who gave Malta its first taste of independence
· the Celbridge gentleman who served with the IRA

Price: €49.90  US $59.97
(incl. postage)