In September 1588, at the start of the
Plantation of Munster, Phane Beecher of London acquired, as Undertaker, the seignory of Castlemahon. It was in this seignory that the town of Bandon was formed in 1604 by Phane Beecher's son and heir Henry Beecher, together with other English settlers John Shipward, William Newce and John Archdeacon. The original settlers in Beecher's seignory came from various locations in England. Originally the town proper was inhabited solely by
Protestants, as a by-law had been passed stating "That no Roman Catholic be permitted to reside in the town". A protective wall extended for about a mile around the town. Written on the gates of Bandon at this time was a warning "Entrance to Jew, Turk or Atheist; any man except a Papist". A response was scrawled under the sign noting: "The man who wrote this wrote it well, for the same thing is writ on the gates of hell." Buildings sprang up on both sides of the river and over time a series of bridges linked both settlements. Like other towns in Cork, it benefitted greatly from the patronage of
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork, although he was not, as he liked to claim, its "founder".
Christ Church, Kilbrogan, is the oldest church in Bandon, and also the oldest purpose-built post-Reformation Protestant church in Ireland. In 1689 it was the
scene of a clash between
Jacobite and
Williamite forces during the
War of the Two Kings. After an uprising by Protestant inhabitants who expelled the
Irish Army garrison, a larger force under
Justin McCarthy, Viscount Mountcashel arrived and retook the town.
Sir John Moore, who was later leader of the British Army and was killed at the
Battle of Corunna in Spain in 1809, was governor of the town in 1798. In the 19th century, the town grew as a leading industrial centre which included brewing, tanning, distilling, corn and cotton milling. The now closed
Allman's Distillery produced at one point over 600,000 gallons of whiskey annually. The
Industrial Revolution in the 1800s and the advent of the railways had a profound effect on the
socioeconomic and
cultural ecosystem of the area. Local
weaving operations could not compete with mass-produced cheap imports.
St Peter's Church was built in 1847, and
Bandon Town Hall was completed in 1862. Major General
Arthur Ernest Percival was commander of the British garrison in Bandon in 1920–21 during the
Irish War of Independence. He was subsequently the commanding officer of the British troops who surrendered Singapore to the Japanese forces in 1942. In 1945 he was invited by
Douglas MacArthur to witness the surrender of Japanese forces in Tokyo in 1945 which ended the
Second World War. Irish army leader
Michael Collins was killed in an ambush at
Béal na Bláth, about outside Bandon. Between 1911 and 1926, the non-Catholic population of Bandon dropped from 688 (22% of the population) to 375 (13% of the population), a decline of 45.5%. Peter Hart argued, in
The IRA and its Enemies (1998), that during the
Irish War of Independence, Bandon's
Protestant population, which was largely
unionist, suffered from
Irish Republican Army (IRA) reprisals. In particular,
ten Protestant men were shot over 27–29 April 1922 (two months before the start of the Civil War), "because they were Protestant." Niall Meehan argued, however (2008, 2014), that Hart was mistaken. The killings were not "motivated by either land agitation or by sectarian considerations." In
Peter Hart, the Issue of Sources, Brian Murphy noted a British intelligence assessment,
A Record of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1920–1921, that Hart cited selectively. Murphy observed, "Hart does not give the next two sentences from the official Record which read": an exception to this rule was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information. Although the Intelligence Officer of the area was exceptionally experienced and although the troops were most active it proved almost impossible to protect those brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss. Murphy, therefore, concluded in a 1998 review of Hart's research, "the IRA killings in the Bandon area were motivated by political and not sectarian considerations". He amended this in 2005 to "Possibly, military considerations, rather than political, would have been a more fitting way to describe the reason for the IRA response to those who informed." Castle Bernard, the seat of
Lord Bandon, was also burned in the Irish War of Independence. Bandon has been flooded many times over the years, including November 2009 when the river burst its banks, and December 2015 as a result of
Storm Desmond and
Storm Frank. The Bandon Flood Relief Scheme was eventually finished in December 2022. Bandon is in the three-seat
Dáil constituency of
Cork South-West.
Historic borough Bandon was incorporated as a municipal borough by a charter of 1614 granted by
James I. The corporation of the borough was formally known as "The Provost, Free Burgesses, and Commonalty of the Borough of Bandon-Bridge" and consisted of a
provost, 12
burgesses, and an unlimited number of
freemen. It had an
oligarchic constitution. The common council, a body not mentioned in the borough charter, was constituted by a
by-law of the corporation made in 1621. It consisted of twelve members, who were elected from the freemen by the corporation at large, as vacancies arose. The burgesses were chosen from the common council, on vacancies occurring, by the provost and burgesses. The provost was elected annually from and by the burgesses at
midsummer, and took office at
Michaelmas. The freedom was acquired by birth for the eldest son of a freeman, and nomination of the provost, who during the year of his office had the privilege of naming one. The freemen were elected by a majority of the body at large assembled in a court of D'Oyer
Hundred; neither residence nor any other qualification was considered necessary. The municipal corporation was abolished by the
Municipal Corporations (Ireland) Act 1840. ==Twin city==