From tragic generals to nuns on the run – the extraordinary stories of the men and women who left Ireland for the battlefields of The Great War

Who were the Irish men and women who went to war? What did they think, feel and believe and how did war change the course of their lives and our own?

Turtle Bunbury is one of Ireland’s most prolific and energetic historians. On the 100 year anniversary of World War 1 he turns his attention to the Irish who served at every turn, examining the war from the perspective of the people.

Many of those who fought in the Great War are long since forgotten in the towns and villages they came from but here they come alive again. Readers will marvel at the often madcap adventures of those whose lives took an entirely unexpected turn because of the unique circumstances presented by the war.

Here are the Home Rule politicians who died for the Empire, the Anglo-Irish aristocrats and working-class Dubliners who fell side by side, the padres who tried to bring comfort and peace, the flying aces and sharp-shooting snipers, the future Irish rebel leaders who learned their skills in British uniform, the luckless Benedictine nines who found their way from the battlefields of Ypres to Kylemore Abbey in Galway and the Cork nurse who fought for the Serbian Army.

The Glorious Madness is published by Gill Books on Tuesday, 21 October 2014, priced at €29.99.

For further information please contact Teresa Daly, Communications Manager, 01 500 9521, 086 838 3559, tdaly@gill.ie.