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SOCIAL HISTORY:With their second volume of ‘Vanishing Ireland’, historian Turtle Bunbury and photographer James Fennell have once again documented stories that would otherwise be lost. They tell Miriam Mulcahyabout their search for characters and a good yarn

TURTLE BUNBURY AND James Fennell, childhood friends since school days in Dalkey, are disconcertingly like brothers. They finish each other’s sentences, and have a visible shorthand of communication honed by years of working together. Fennell’s house, where we meet, is the converted stable block of his family home outside Ballitore, Co Kildare. Antique chairs politely gather around the time-worn, scarred oak table. Old prints line the walls. A dog is gnawing away at a bone at my feet.