The Glorious Madness – Tales of the Irish and the Great War: First-hand accounts of Irish men and women in the First World War

by Turtle Bunbury

From tragic generals to nuns on the run – the extraordinary stories of the Irish on the frontlines of the First World War that you’ve never heard before

Based on first-hand accounts of the First World War, The Glorious Madness is a collection of character portraits and stirring anecdotes that brings to life the hopes, fears and ambitions that defined the generation of Irish men and women lost to the catastrophe of the first great modern war.

From the generals and field commanders through to the troopers and nurses on the front lines, from the trenches of the Somme to the beaches of Gallipoli, the Irish served at every turn in the Great War.

Popular historian Turtle Bunbury is renowned for uncovering important forgotten stories from our past. Here he reveals many never-before-heard tales of the Irish heroes and heroines whose lives coincided with one of the most brutal conflicts our world has ever known – including nuns, artists, sportsmen, poets, aristocrats, nationalists, nurses, clergymen and film directors.

From the dramatic story of the nuns of Ypres and their escape to Ireland to found Kylemore Abbey, to the multiple-escapist who became the one-legged nemesis of Michael Collins, and the five tragic, rugby-loving pals from the same Dublin team massacred at Gallipoli, the stories that Turtle Bunbury unearths about Irish men and women offer a new and timely perspective on Irish participation in the Great War.

An important book, by turns poignant, enlightening, whimsical and darkly comic, this is history as it should – free-wheeling and finely tuned to the rhythms of the human heart.

‘[In The Glorious Madness] Turtle continues the wonderful listening and yarn-spinning he has honed in the Vanishing Ireland series, applying it to veterans of the First World War. The stories he recreates are poignant, whimsical and bleakly funny, bringing back into the light the lives of people who found themselves on the wrong side of history after the struggle for Irish independence. This is my kind of micro-history.’
John Grenham, The Irish Times

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War I, Ireland

550 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 17, 2014

Reviews

[MyBookAffair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dipped into book after book, both fact and fiction, trying to get a true sense of what life was like one hundred years ago for those who lived through those terrible times. When I opened up Turtle Bunbury's book, 'The Glorious Madness', I immediately knew that I had found the book that I had been searching for.
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[Ruadh Butler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible collection of stories told with great skill. A 'must read' for anyone interested in the First World War period and Irish history

[Mdaly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting book, well written. Great stories ranging from Irish nuns in Ypres to the man who wrote 'It's a long way to Tipperary'. It should be required reading for all students of 20th century Irish history.

[Adrian Fingleton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book a bit frustrating. What I found was slices of life from the great war and stories about individuals, battles, acts of bravery and 'theatres of war' other than the Western front. But I think because the book 'jumped around' from story to story I found it hard to get any momentum when reading it. It's a slice of life from an Anglo-Irish era of Hunts, Big Houses, people with double barrelled names, and that IS interesting. But I struggled to care overmuch about the people, with a few exceptions.

The sections about the Dardenelles and Mesopotamia were interesting but more so because I knew little about the battles and the 'errors of judgement' than that I cared about the people. So it's a good book, but it rather passed me by.

[John Somers · Rating 3 out of 5]

12/20.