During its first week of publication, James's new book, 'The Irish Pub' generated considerable coverage on BBC News , BBC World, The Today Show (BBC Radio 4) and Saturday Magazine (BBC Radio Ulster), as well as Ireland AM (TV3) and The Tom Dunne Show (Newstalk 106). RTE's Nationwide also did a series on the state of the Irish Pub, visiting two of the establishments featured as well as interviews with Turtle and myself and respective publicans. To view this click here.
The book has also been a major feature story in The Irish Times, The Irish Examiner, Sunday Independent, The Irish Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Sunday World, The Dubliner and the Oct/Nov 08 issue of Cara. James and co-author Turtle launched the book to a full house in the Gravity Bar at the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, on 2nd October 2008, followed by launches at The Crown in Belfast on the 7th and Geoff's of Waterford on the 16th, as well as Lenehan's of Kilkenny on Thursday 23rd Oct. Published by Thames & Hudson, the book offers a colourful tour of 39 classic pubs from across all 32 counties of Ireland.
Ireland is synonymous with pubs. Traditionally, the pub was the focal point of community life. For some, alcohol encouraged joyful moments, an emigration of the soul from sometimes unhappy realities. But for most people, the pub was there for sheer delight. You never knew who you’d meet, or what strange wisdom someone might pass on. Ideas rebounded from the tobacco-stained walls into every snug and cranny; giddy fiddles and rattling tongues could enliven the darkest corners.
Yet in 21st-century Ireland the traditional Irish pub is rapidly disappearing.
This nostalgic and entertaining tour presents nearly 40 pubs from all four provinces that epitomize the essential charm of old Ireland. They range from the richly decorated Victorian bars of Belfast and Dublin to country shop bars that double as grocery stores, where the décor consists of shelves laden with tins of fruit, packets of tea and lightbulbs. James's atmospheric photographs and Turtle ’s engaging and informed descriptions capture the essence of each pub and provide a rich chronicle of a unique facet of community life.
Here is a tribute to the way things were, a representative record of what survives and a reminder of the continuing allure of the Irish pub. For today the Irish pub has become a fixed feature of the social scene across the globe. In these pages, everyone can find the real thing.
MEDIA COVERAGE
SUNDAY INDEPENDENT - 5th October 2008
Why my heart still lies in a warm pub - by Victoria Mary Clarke
It's not often I feel proud to be Irish. One's nationality is an accident, not something one chooses in the way that one selects a handbag or a car, and therefore is not a reflection of one's good taste. But having just picked up a new book called The Irish Pub (by a man with the classically Irish name of Turtle Bunbury), I have to confess an unfounded sense of national pride did sneak up on me. For there can be few creations on Earth as wondrous as the really good pub -- and it may be a dying breed, but the Irish pub is the best in the world. I really got this book for Shane, because he adores pubs, and as I suspected, he has drooled over the pictures (which, I might add, are masterpieces of pub porn) so much that one can barely read the information. But the book had an unexpectedly profound effect on me, too. Because, having also admired the majestic interiors of the likes of the Belfast Crown (to my mind, the most beautiful pub in the world), I realised that it's been ages since I went to a pub. I am turning into one of those types who hang out in Starbucks, decimating my soul with trashy magazines while ignoring my fellow beings, rather than an old-fashioned Irish person who drinks in bars, cheerfully spouting philosophy to all and sundry. continued
THE IRISH TIMES MAGAZINE - 4th October 2008
One for the Road
SOCIAL HISTORY: The authors of 'Vanishing Ireland', Turtle Bunbury and James Fennell, have turned their attention to pub culture in a handsome new book, 'The Irish Pub', just published by Thames & Hudson. See full version
THE IRISH EXAMINER WEEKEND MAGAZINE - 4th October 2008
Link coming soon.
THE IRISH NEWS - 1st October 2008
New book toasts best of old-style watering holes - by Margaret Canning
Could plasma screens be one of the reasons why the Irish pub is now just the dregs of its former self? Margaret Canning reports
BARFLIES in Co Fermanagh will be spluttering in their stout on hearing that none of the county’s pubs have made it into a book toasting the best of Ireland’s pub culture. Author Turtle Bunbury and photographer James Fennell embarked on a road-trip-come-pub-crawl to record classic public houses which embody the best of drinking culture north and south. The idea came to the pair as they criss-crossed the country researching an earlier picture book, Vanishing Ireland, and found that many pubs which had once been the centre of their communities were no more. So they set out to document and photograph two remarkable venues in each of Ireland’s 32 counties from a longlist of 400 recommendations.
Lest the focus of their work become too gloomy, The Irish Pub features many that are stillthriving – and in the case of the Crown in Belfast, been recently revamped. But alas, no pubs in counties Fermanagh or Longford made the grade.The pub-probing pair also beat a hasty retreat from Tomneys in Moy on realising there was a wake in progress in the quirky Co Tyrone bar.
Researching the book was a labour of love, Mr Bunbury confirmed. “You could say I’ve been researching it since I was 16,” he said (though he admits to first tasting liquor at 13, at the behest of his two older brothers).
As far as Co Fermanagh goes, he acknowledges that Blakes of the Hollow in Enniskillen has an inviting exterior, but his heart sinks when he notes it is five storeys high with seven plasmas on one floor. “It has a really charming entrance but when you get in, it’s just a superpub.”
In general, Mr Bunbury rails against what he regards as the homogeneous features which are undermining the Irish pub as an institution – “disinterested staff, flaccid seating, glossy counters and obscenely big TV screens”. But there are bigger factors at play than the minutiae of fixtures and fittings, he finds. Young people want to spend money on cars, property and holidays, not in their nearest pub. Nor is their local a focal point when they are in constant contact with friends by text and internet.
In many cases, a pub is also only as good as its bartenders and the famed Irish friendliness has often turned to frostiness. As Mr Bunbury puts it, “cead mile failte has gone faulty”.
A whirlwind tour of Belfast’s pubs, from The John Hewitt to Kelly’s Cellars, earns the city comparisons with the energy and bustle of Dublin in the early 1990s, with the latter providing “a suitably stark contrast to the glitz of the Crown”.
By staying out of these alehouses, it’s not just the opportunity for bacchanalian excess in the company of strangers we’re missing out on – we are increasing our own isolation, Mr Bunbury maintains. “I think there’s a danger that we are losing out. The pub played a very important role as a centre for the community, getting people up the lanes, off the farms and down from the hills and into somewhere they could interact with people.
“It wasn’t a place like the church – no-one would bark at you, though it was a man’s world and somewhere you could escape the family. It’s somewhere to meet neighbours on neutral ground without having to worry about entertaining them.”
He has a daring solution. “I think the government should protect the pub – perhaps a bus to pick up members of the community and making the bus tax-deductible.”
Although Mr Bunbury is among the many to have given up cigarettes as a result of the smoking ban – perhaps the biggest factor in the decline of the Irish pub – he struggles to find a silver lining.
“I don’t think there are positives to pubs closing down in villages. I don’t think it’s a good thing that people will sit drinking at home and getting depressed.”
As for how often he makes it down the pub himself, the busy father admits “it’s not as often as I’d like to”.
THE SUNDAY TRIBUNE - 28 September 2008
Are you being served?
The traditional Irish pub hasn't disappeared but it's certainly been undermined by cool bars with resident DJs and mojito menus. James Fennell and Turtle Bunbury's bookThe Irish Pub is a rich celebration of 40 of Ireland's most historic hostelries, which range from the Victorian bars of Belfast to country shop bars-cum-grocery stores selling boxes of Lyons tea. A book to sit down and savour a pint of the black stuff with.
The Carlow Nationalist & Leinster Times - 16th January 2008 By William Patterson
Turtle Bunbury and James Fennell are at it again, with the pending launch of their latest book 'The Irish Pub' following on from their 2007 bestseller 'Vanishing Ireland'. They might have considered calling it "Vanishing Pubs", considering the inexorable dwindling of patronage from which pubs continue to suffer.The new book is illustrated with a unique collection of two hundred evocative photographs and recounts the colourful history of forty of the best loved pubs across Ireland, north and south. There is twist. You can become a listed patron of the venture, receiving a signed copy of 'The Irish Pub' and posted to you ahead of the book's launch in September 2008. "Vanishing Post Offices" next? Soon there will be nothing more to vanish than the smile of the Cheshire Cat. To become a patron of 'The Irish Pub' or order advance copies of the book, contact Ally Bunbury on 086-384-2376 or allybunbury@yahoo.ie Turtle and Ally Bunbury live near Rathvilly.
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