Economic and social profile
A ‘large and handsome’ market town situated on the Bandon River, Bandon Bridge was founded as a plantation ‘new town’ between 1600 and 1610. Since then the cloth industry had set it apart as a manufacturing centre, and in the later eighteenth century Bandon became an important centre of first the woollen and then the linen and cotton industries. Although trade was disrupted by the 1798 rebellion, it revived before falling into terminal decline from the mid-1820s as a result of its geographical isolation and inability to compete with ‘larger and technically more sophisticated British rivals’.Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849; L.J. Proudfoot, Urban Patronage and Social Authority. The Management of the Duke of Devonshire’s Towns in Ireland, 1764-1891 (1995), 70, 171; A. Bielenberg, ‘The growth and decline of a Textile Town: Bandon 1770-1840’, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 97 (1992), 111-9 [118]. In 1825 there had been 2,000 weavers in the town; there were less than 100 left by the 1840s: R. Foster, Modern Ireland 1600-1972 (1988), 321. Other industries in the town included leather working, flour milling, brewing and distillation.There were 50 public houses in the town in 1840 (one for every 181 inhabitants). By 1851, more than one in ten of the inhabitants held publicans’ licences: K.T. Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society in Ireland 1832-1885 (1985), 52, 53-4. In 1831, more than 60% of families were employed in manufacturing and trades, a figure which had fallen to 50% by 1851 when a railway to connect the town with Cork was completed.For the employment of townspeople during 1824-70, see Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 246-7.
Electoral profile
Bandon’s representation had long been divided between the Bernard and Boyle (after 1748, the Cavendish) interests before it fell under the dominance of Castle Bernard.E.M. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800, iii, (2002), 172-7, and see Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 162-5, 203-7. The 6th duke of Devonshire regained the alternate nomination at Bandon in 1807 but, despite spending heavily on town improvements, his personal popularity was not reflected in the borough’s politics and the period immediately prior to the Reform Act saw ‘signs of ultra-Protestant restiveness’.I. d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics in Cork 1812-1844 (1980), 202-4; L.J. Proudfoot, ‘Landlord motivation and urban improvement on the Duke of Devonshire’s Irish estates, c.1792-1832’, Irish Economic & Social History, xviii (1991), 15, 17, 21; Proudfoot, Urban Patronage , 200-3; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 49-50. Conservative disapproval of Devonshire’s support for Catholic rights and parliamentary reform led to a revolt in favour of the earl of Bandon.Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 74, 133, 235-6; HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 702-4; d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 29; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 307. James Bernard, 2nd earl of Bandon was a major landed proprietor in the neighbourhood and enjoyed a substantial economic interest in the town (though most of his property there was held from Devonshire on a head lease). Lord Shannon owned the south eastern suburb of the town, known as ‘Irishtown’: Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, vol. 2 (1846), 211. During this time Bandon was ‘a complete rotten borough’ in the hands of a close corporation which was under the ‘complete political control’ of the earl, with parliamentary votes limited to the provost and the 12 free burgesses.d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 128; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849; d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 101-3, 164; Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 160; PP 1835 [23] [24] [25] [27] [28] xxvii. 1, 51, 79, 199, xxviii. 1 [199-203]. The provost was elected annually by the free burgesses from among themselves, and they in turn were elected from a 12 strong common council chosen by the freemen. Following an abortive attempt to disenfranchise the borough in July 1832, a new boundary closely encircling the town was created and the electorate increased from the 13 corporate electors to 266 largely newly-enfranchised £10 householders. This did not, however, ‘upset the Conservative Protestant hegemony’ and the 70 resident freemen remained a useful prop to the Conservative interest.HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 702-4; PP 1831-32 (519) xliii. 1 [27-9]; Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 282-3, 284. With a ‘comparatively strong demographic base’ Bandon’s Protestants used their ‘highly visible electoral presence’ to nullify Devonshire’s influence. The reformed electorate was ‘patently the most sectarian’ in County Cork, the two parishes in which the town stood containing 3,741 Anglicans, 125 Presbyterians, and 11,165 Catholics. Yet by 1863, though Protestants were only 30% of the town’s population, they still made up 70% of the registered electorate.d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 163, 171; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 37; Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, vol. 2 (1846), 211. In the intervening period a significant Methodist congregation was established in the town: d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 74. Thus, it is reported, that one candidate who billed ‘himself as a conservative of a progressive cast’ was reminded by Tory electors ‘that by Conservatism they meant Protestantism’.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 36-7, 314.
Prior to the 1832 general election, east Cork witnessed violent demonstrations against tithes. At the beginning of December, the neighbourhood of Bandon was reported to have ‘all the appearance of a country roused into insurrection’. A contingent of marines was stationed in the town, where the Orange party had been recently active.The Times, 5 Dec. 1832. In September 1832, with Devonshire’s sitting member, Sir Augustus Clifford, having signalled his intention to resign, Lieutenant-colonel Sampson Stawell, a nephew of the earl of Bandon, had accepted an invitation from the Liberal electors to contest the borough. He would not take Daniel O’Connell’s repeal pledge but stood as ‘an anti-corporator’ and ‘anti-monopolist’ who opposed the tithe system, and called for a complete revision of the grand jury laws.Sir Matthew Barrington to Lord Stanley, 16 Nov. 1832: LRO, Derby MSS, 125/4; Freeman’s Journal, 13, 18 Sept., 20 Nov. 1832. However, after successfully canvassing the seat he opted to contest Kinsale as a replacement for his brother Captain James Ludlow Stawell, who had died suddenly.Stawell had recently been arrested for attending an anti-tithe meeting, and was to have been defended by Daniel O’Connell. Freeman’s Journal, 19 Sept. 1832; Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register, 22 Sept. 1832. Stawell thus avoided a contest with his near relative as it was thought that Lord Bandon wanted his son, Viscount Bernard, to contest the seat. However, the Conservative electors’ misgivings about the young aristocrat meant the earl’s youngest brother, Captain Hon. William Smyth Bernard stood instead.Freeman’s Journal, 18 Sept. 1832; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849. O’Connell believed that there was ‘much probability’ of returning a repealer for the seat, but in the event Jacob Biggs, a local Protestant manufacturer of ‘moderate liberal views’, who had been the original choice of the Reformists, came forward.Daniel O’Connell to Richard Barrett, 29 Oct. 1832, M.R. O’Connell (ed.), Correspondence of Daniel O’Connell, iv, 461-2; Freeman’s Journal, 17, 20, 26 Nov. 1832; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849. His seconder, Patrick Collins, attempted to enlist popular sympathy by alluding to the effect that emigration had had on the town over the previous twenty years. However, after three days polling, during which the military were called upon to quell disturbances, Biggs was defeated by a significant margin.P. Connolly, ‘Some elections in Bandon before and after the Parnell split’, Bandon Historical Journal, 17 (2001), 7-22 [7]; Morning Chronicle, 24 Dec. 1832. For proposers and seconders at each election, see G. Bennett, The History of Bandon, and the Principal Towns in the West Riding of County Cork (1869), 545-6, 552-3.
Although this looked like a victory for the earl, the political impetus behind Bernard’s candidacy had come largely from below, and the corporation was no longer willing to accede to Lord Bandon’s wish to divide the representation with Devonshire. Finding himself unable to honour the electoral agreement made by his father, Bandon ceased to interfere with the corporation early in 1833, resigning as a burgess in July and withdrawing his financial support.HP Commons, 1820-32, iv, 270; iii. 702-4. The corporation therefore became for a time the autonomous basis of Conservative organisation in Bandon and responsible for selecting candidates.d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 113. Faced by such ‘uncompromising and trenchant Protestant feeling’, the Devonshire interest could not compete with the corporation, whose influence was buttressed by 70 freemen voters in an electorate of just 250. In spite of owning the ‘old town’ (which encompassed most of the borough) and all of the property of the corporation, after 1832 Devonshire could not ‘get in a man for Bandon without spending a vast fortune’.Ibid., 113; A. Macintyre, The Liberator. Daniel O’Connell and the Irish Party 1830-1847 (1965), 108-9; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849.
By 1835, the sectarian tensions of the 1820s had revived in Bandon, which hosted a large public meeting of the Conservative Society of Ireland in October 1834.The meeting was said to have attracted a crowd of between 5 and 12,000 people: Morning Chronicle, 18 Oct. 1834; H. Senior, Orangeism in Ireland and Britain 1795-1836 (1966), 252-3. The meeting had been called to demonstrate publicly Lord Bandon’s recent ‘conversion’ to Orangeism. It was a clear indication that the movement, which had previously been confined to Bandon’s lower middle class, had expanded into a more open and ‘respectable’ organisation and had secured aristocratic approval. Certainly, Lord Bandon regarded the Orange society as a useful tool for binding the county’s Protestants more closely together.HP Commons, 1820-32, iv. 270. By 1835 there were seven lodges in the town and Lord Bandon was head of the County Grand Lodge, see d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 203-7; Morning Chronicle, 9 Jan. 1837. Shortly afterwards, Bandon and other lay tithe-owners employed the legal expedient of applying to the Court of Exchequer for power to recover tithes. Although the move was effectively blocked by the Irish under secretary, Thomas Drummond, who withheld police assistance, social tensions in south Cork were further increased.McIntyre, The Liberator, 189. O’Connell believed that these ‘Orange orgies’ would assist the repeal cause and he told the Anti-Tory Association that if the duke of Devonshire’s agents would influence his tenantry to support a reformer like Biggs, Bandon could be wrested from the Conservatives.D. O’Connell to P.V. Fitzgerald, 11 Nov. 1834, O’Connell Correspondence, v, 199-200; Belfast News-letter, 2 Dec. 1834; The Times, 2 Dec. 1834. On the other hand, following the recent establishment of the Conservative Society of Cork (of which Lord Bandon was vice-president) an active election society grew up in the town which was successful in attracting local Protestant artisans.HP Commons 1820-32, iv. 270; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 282. The membership of the town’s Brunswick Club of 1829 and the Conservative Club of 1841 demonstrated that Conservatism in Bandon was broadly based: d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 141, 173.
At the 1835 general election William Bernard informed the town’s Conservative committee that he would retire on grounds of ill-health. Led by the town’s provost John Wheeler, Bandon’s tories approached, through Sir Robert Peel, the arch-Conservative Sir Charles Wetherell. After Wetherell declined their invitation to stand Frederick Shaw, the general manager of the Irish Conservatives, approached in turn George Bennet, Q.C., the crown prosecutor on the Munster circuit, Thomas Berry Cusack-Smith and John Martley, the assistant barrister for Cork, all of whom also declined. Finally the seat, along with a vacant position as sergeant-at-law, was sufficient to entice Joseph Devonsher Jackson, a well-known Cork barrister, to come forward as the Tory candidate.Morning Chronicle, 7, 31 Jan. 1835; Freeman’s Journal, 8 Jan. 1835; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849; d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 171. For Wetherell’s role in the Bristol reform riots of 1831, see J.A. Phillips, The Great Reform Bill in the Boroughs. English Electoral Behaviour 1818-1841 (1992), 66-71. With no Devonshire nominee forthcoming, and Jacob Biggs having declined to stand again on the Anti-Tory interest, Jackson was opposed by the reformer James Redmond Barry of Glandeer, a local Catholic squire and claimant to the viscountcy of Buttevant.CP, i, 447. He was later a commissioner of Irish fisheries: Freeman’s Journal, 24 Dec. 1857. Although there was an influx of country people into the town at the election, the contest had been ‘long since decided on the register’ and Jackson won the election by a large margin.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 392; d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 171; The Times, 22 Dec. 1834, 7 Jan. 1835.
Middle-class Conservatism now appeared to be the dominant political force in Bandon. Nevertheless, the Liberal challenge in 1835 was sufficient for the Conservatives to renew their registration efforts. When Lord Bandon finally healed his rift with the corporation and resumed his position as recorder in 1837, the ultra-Tory interest was fully re-established, as illustrated by the attendance of Lord Bandon and Viscount Bernard at the dinner given by the ‘Friendly Brothers’ of Bandon for Jackson in January 1837.HP Commons 1820-32, iv. 270. The ‘Friendly Brothers’ was a flag of convenience for the Orange Society, which had been temporarily dissolved in 1836: Morning Chronicle, 9 Jan. 1837. All the same, at the 1837 general election the Whig government was anxious that as many seats as possible should be contested – particularly safe Tory ones like Bandon. It was rumoured that the Hon. Robert Edward Boyle, the second surviving son of the 8th earl of Cork and Orrery, would stand as a Liberal. After he withdrew, and ‘under intense government pressure’ the combined yet somewhat reluctant support of the duke of Devonshire and the earls of Cork and Shannon was mobilised behind Captain Hon. William George Cavendish, a kinsman of Devonshire who had recently been displaced as the candidate for Youghal.The candidate was the son of Charles Compton Cavendish, a grandson of the 4th duke of Devonshire. The duke, however, refused to provide financial support for Cavendish, whose father proved unwilling to spend more than £500 on his son’s candidacy.Freeman’s Journal, 6 July 1837; Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 286. Nevertheless, being under the impression that an ‘expensive contest’ loomed, the Conservative electors summoned a meeting in support of Jackson in order to deter any further challenges to their dominance of what had become known as ‘the Derry of the South’.The Times, 11, 14, 24 July 1837; Morning Chronicle, 11 July 1837. Sections of the press attempted to smear the Whig candidate by printing an apparently groundless allegation that Cavendish had been ‘guilty of a brutal and indecent attack upon some young ladies’ who had surprised him while bathing in the river.Morning Chronicle, 5 Aug. 1837. On the hustings, to cries of ‘Jackson, and no surrender’, the Conservative candidate spoke powerfully in favour of ‘the security and defence of the national church’ and for the ‘preservation of the constitution’ and ‘perpetuation of the union’. He also warned electors against allowing the Devonshire interest to return the borough to ‘its ancient state of thraldom’. Cavendish, who was said to have ‘canvassed the constituency with an aristocratic haw-haw air, which was by no means winning’, spoke only briefly to emphasise his Protestant lineage and kinship with Devonshire and his support for Melbourne’s ministry. A ‘suppressed titter’, it was reported, was kept up during the entire delivery of his address. James Redmond Barry was again nominated, but only for the purpose of addressing the electors. Having only come forward after many votes had already been pledged to Jackson, Cavendish’s failure seemed inevitable and Jackson headed the poll by a considerable margin.The Times, 7 Aug. 1837; Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849; Proudfoot, Urban Patronage, 286. Nevertheless, a petition was rumoured when, as in 1835, Jackson’s qualification to sit for Bandon was questioned. However, with the Conservative majority being so large, no attempt to challenge the result was made.Freeman’s Journal, 14 Feb. 1835; The Times, 18 Oct. 1837; Belfast News-letter, 20 Oct. 1837.
On 5 December 1839 O’Connell made his first visit ‘within the walls’ of the town and his enthusiastic welcome was interpreted in Liberal circles as ‘the commencement of a new and important era in the history of Bandon’.P. Hamilton, ‘Within the Walls: Daniel O’Connell in Bandon, 1839’, Bandon Historical Journal, 13 (1997), 21-31; 14 (1998), 23-31; Freeman’s Journal, 9 Dec. 1839; Morning Chronicle, 11 Dec. 1839; Belfast News-letter, 13 Dec. 1839. The Conservatives quickly responded to the visit by holding a public dinner for Jackson: Freeman’s Journal, 6 Jan. 1840. Encouraged by his reception, O’Connell planned to wrest the seat from Jackson at the 1841 general election, ‘with the aid of an iron master from Shropshire named Emery’, who had recently succeeded to considerable property’. His candidature did not, however, materialise and Jackson, who had established a considerable reputation as a leader of Irish Conservatism in the Commons, was re-elected ‘without semblance of opposition’.D. O’Connell to P.V. Fitzgerald, 7 Dec. 1839, 12 May 1841, O’Connell Correspondence, vi. 289, vii. 57-8; M. Murphy, ‘Municipal reform and the repeal movement in Cork, 1833-1844’, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, 81 (1976), 1-18; The Times, 9 July 1841.
Far from experiencing a Liberal revival, the early 1840s saw the re-emergence of the electoral influence of the Bernard family. Though in later life the 2nd earl of Bandon was derided as ‘an admirably preserved specimen of an antiquated dandy’, his appointment as lord lieutenant of County Cork in 1842 enabled him to resume an unassailable influence over the borough. His son, Viscount Bernard, had intimated in September 1841 that should Jackson be promoted to any situation that would remove him from parliament, he would offer, and when Jackson was appointed solicitor-general for Ireland and accepted a vacancy for Dublin University, he duly came forward. A new writ was issued on 5 February 1842, and Bernard was returned unopposed, having used his address to praise Sir Robert Peel’s ministry and point to the consequent improvement in the state of Ireland.The Times, 1 Sept. 1841, 9, 18 Feb. 1842.
That the onset of famine in County Cork in 1846 did little to change the complexion of Bandon’s politics was largely due to Viscount Bernard’s political performance both in Westminster and in Ireland. Recent historiography has demonstrated that ‘Bandon and the surrounding countryside were badly hit by the famine’. Anglican parish registers indicate that the death rate even amongst Bandon’s generally wealthier Protestants was three-fifths above its immediate pre-famine level during 1846-8.C. O’Grada, Black ’47 and Beyond. The Great Irish Famine in History, Economy, and Memory (1999), 86. As the chairman of the local board of guardians, Viscount Bernard was closely involved with local relief efforts, and addressed a large public meeting concerning the crisis in County Cork in September 1846.PP 1846 (201) xxxvii. 429; Freeman’s Journal, 14 Sept. 1846. He subsequently pressed the government to render assistance to the Bandon union, and urged the Commissariat Office to open its local food depots at the earliest opportunity.Freeman’s Journal, 19 Oct. 1846; PP 1847 (761) li. 1, and see C. Kinealy, This Great Calamity. The Irish famine 1845-52 (1994), 77-9. Bernard’s efforts during the crisis further consolidated his family’s ‘uncontrolled sway’ over the town’s 200 electors, and he was returned unopposed at the 1847 general election.The Times, 5 Aug. 1847. In his address, Bernard defended his opposition to the Peel ministry over the Maynooth grant and the repeal of the corn laws, expressed his concern that the government food depots had now been abolished, and protested that his support for measures to increase the food supply had been met ‘with arguments founded on the cold and calculating doctrines of political economy’.The Times, 5 Aug. 1847; B. Walker, ‘Politicians, Elections and Catastrophe: The General Election of 1847’, Irish Political Studies, 22:1 (2007), 1-34 [20].
In spite of Bernard’s spirited defence of the interests of the destitute during the crisis of 1846-7, the Liberals hoped that the reduction of the voting qualification under the Irish Franchise Act of 1850 might increase the size of Bandon’s electorate and thus improve their chance of winning the seat. However, the wholesale revision of the electoral registers in 1840-1 (as the octennial certificates issued to qualified voters under the Reform Act in 1832-3 expired), coupled with the effects of famine, meant that the number of registered voters in 1851 was significantly smaller than it had been in 1832. An English visitor in 1852 reported that whole streets of the town had been abandoned by their former inhabitants as a result of impoverishment and emigration.O’Grada, Black ’47 and Beyond, 252. Nevertheless, at that year’s general election it was rumoured that a ‘rich and adventurous Englishman’ would contest the seat for the Liberals. However, Bernard’s merits as an able advocate of Irish interests at Westminster had provided him with a significant ‘moral influence over the town’ and the challenge did not materialise.Daily News, 13 Sept. 1849; Freeman’s Journal, 24 Apr. 1852; Morning Chronicle, 7 May 1852; The Times, 8 July 1852.
When Bernard succeeded as 4th earl of Bandon in October 1856, a vacancy occurred.As an Irish peer, he could not sit for an Irish seat. John Wheeler, the former provost and current chairman of the town commission, responded to an invitation from ‘a number of respectable merchants’ of the town and issued an address in favour of ‘civil and religious liberty to the fullest extent’, an equitable arrangement of landlord-tenant relations, and an improvement of the town’s markets. Reacting to this, a meeting of Conservative electors nominated William Smyth Bernard, the new earl’s uncle and a former member for the borough, 13 Nov.The Times, 14, 17 Nov. 1856; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Nov. 1856. A writ was issued when the parliamentary session began on 3 Feb. 1857 and, although the chances of opening the borough were ‘said to be extremely meagre’, a sharp contest ensued. Although Wheeler appeared to ally himself with the radicals, the political principles of this ex-naval officer were known to be ‘thorough Bandonian’, and he quickly left the field open for Bernard.d’Alton, Protestant Society and Politics, 171; Freeman’s Journal, 5 Nov. 1856, quoting Waterford Mail. Wheeler had proposed Viscount Bernard at the 1847 and 1852 general elections. The contest was now between Bernard, who had identified himself as ‘a supporter of the Derby policy’ and William Shaw, a businessman who would later briefly lead the Home Rule party, making his first showing in the Liberal interest.Morning Chronicle, 4 Feb. 1857; The Times, 9, 13, 14 Feb. 1857; C.L. Falkiner, rev. Alan O’Day, ‘Shaw, William (1823-1895)’, Oxford DNB, vol. 50, 130. Shaw, a Dissenter, was a clear opponent of the Bernards, being critical of the established church and supporting further extension of the national education system. He engaged Macarthy Downing as his electoral adviser and there was considerable speculation as to whether Bandon would become an independent borough or remain ‘the private property of a noble family’.Freeman’s Journal, 18 Nov. 1856, 10 Feb. 1857; The Era, 8 Feb. 1857.
The nominations took place on 11 February 1857 and, with opposition being ‘of rather rare occurrence in that highly orthodox family borough’, the proceedings were distinguished ‘by a fair amount of the ordinary excitement of an Irish contested election’. Although Shaw’s Liberal credentials were initially called into doubt by the Freeman’s Journal, the paper soon characterized the contest as one between ‘local revolt and the ancient owner’.The Times, 13 Feb. 1857; The Era, 23 Nov. 1856; Freeman’s Journal, 18 Nov. 1856, 12 Feb. 1857. The atmosphere at the hustings was ‘extremely noisy and uproarious’ and, despite having cut a lacklustre figure during the campaign, the show of hands was in favour of Shaw and a poll was demanded. Amidst claims that attacks had been made on the houses of Bernard’s supporters, and counterclaims that the ‘old Orange spirit’ was being aroused ‘with all its ancient animosity’, the town became a scene of riot and violence and a strong military force supported by 200 constabulary was required to keep order.Connolly, ‘Some elections in Bandon’, 7-8; Morning Chronicle, 13 Feb. 1857; Belfast News-letter, 16 Feb. 1857. It was believed that 43 of town’s 48 Catholic voters, along with a few Presbyterians and others, voted for Shaw, but Bernard still won by a clear majority (the first vote recorded for him was that of John Wheeler, his erstwhile opponent).Daily News, 16 Feb. 1857. The Liberals alleged that intimidation ‘of every nature and kind’ had been exercised and claimed that tenants of the duke of Devonshire, ‘who had unequivocally promised to vote for Shaw were brought to the table with the fumes of the previous night’s debauch still thick upon them’, to vote instead for Bernard. Bandon, they concluded, had remained ‘true to its old traditions’ and ‘unmistakeably pronounced against the attempt to open its gates for the admission of Liberalism, even in the most diluted form’. Bernard was accordingly returned with a clear majority, and at the ensuing general election was re-elected unopposed.Freeman’s Journal, 16 Feb. 1857; The Times, 16 Feb., 1 Apr. 1857.
Much of the success enjoyed by Bandon’s Conservatives in this period can be attributed to efficient local organization, which drew upon the advice and support of the Central Conservative Society of Ireland formed in 1853. Regular registration work was carried out in the town and Shaw declined to contest the borough at the 1859 general election when Bernard was returned again unopposed.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 286-7, 291; The Times, 23 Apr., 3 May 1859. When Bernard died in February 1863, his nephew Colonel Hon. Henry Boyle Bernard offered for the vacant seat and Thomas Kingston Sullivan, a local solicitor and landowner, came forward to oppose him. Due to their strong ties of local kinship, it was estimated that ‘the “Sullivans” alone’ would provide the Liberal candidate with an electoral ‘Phalanx’.The Times, 9, 10 Feb. 1863; Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 456. The nominations took place on 24 February in the presence of 300 soldiers and constabulary and a troop of hussars. The proceedings were described as ‘one continued riot’, during which neither candidate was able to make himself heard.One of ‘the mob’, named Regan, ‘for fully half an hour occupied the witness table, which was placed between the contending parties, and danced and capered on it like a madman, taking off the hats of those persons who were within his reach, and kicking them about.’ After he struck an old gentleman, the man was removed with ‘sticks, legs, and fists, being freely used’: Daily News, 27 Feb. 1863. The show of hands was in favour of Bernard and a poll was demanded. After a disorderly contest in which voters were violently assaulted and their houses attacked, Bernard was returned by a large majority.Hoppen, Elections, Politics, and Society, 395; Belfast News-letter, 25, 27 Feb. 1863.
In spite of Bernard’s clear victory in 1863, however, Shaw offered again at the 1865 general election, this time on ‘decided Liberal and independent principles’. He contended that the ‘feudalism and ascendancy ideas’ that had characterised the politics of Castle Bernard were ‘altogether out of place in the present day’.Freeman’s Journal, 28 June 1865. In the presence of a large force of police and military, a boisterous but good humoured crowd attended the hustings, the meeting being so noisy that once again neither candidate was able to be heard. The show of hands was declared to be in favour of Shaw and in the subsequent poll Bernard prevailed by only five votes.The Nation, 15 July 1865; Belfast News-letter, 13 July 1865.
Bernard and Shaw again went head to head at the 1868 general election before a significantly enlarged electorate. Polling was once more marked by violence but this time Shaw attracted sufficient Protestant (mainly Nonconformist) votes to gain the seat for the Liberals by an equally close margin.Nation, 28 Nov. 1868; Bennett, History of Bandon, 553; Connolly, ‘Some elections in Bandon’, 10. The seat was narrowly held for the Liberals in 1874 by Alexander Swanston, the duke of Devonshire’s former agent at Bandon, who defeated Viscount Bernard (James Francis Bernard), the son of the 3rd earl of Bandon, but in 1880, the earl’s nephew Captain Percy Broderick Bernard, regained the seat for the Conservatives, only to resign shortly afterwards. In the ensuing by-election the seat was recaptured for the Liberals by Richard Allman with a clear margin. In 1885, the borough was absorbed into the constituency of Cork South-East which instantly became a stronghold of the Nationalist party.
