| Bandon | |
| Type: | borough |
| Borough: | Bandon |
| Region: | Ireland |
| County: | County Cork |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 1801 |
| Abolished: | 1885 |
| Seats: | 1 |
| Previous: | Bandonbridge |
| Next: | South East Cork |
Bandon (sometimes called Bandon Bridge or Bandonbridge) was a parliamentary constituency representing the town of Bandon in County Cork, Ireland from 1801 to 1885. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Bandon was a borough constituency with two representatives in the Irish House of Commons before 1801. The borough retained one member after the Act of Union, until the borough was disenfranchised in 1885.
This constituency was the parliamentary borough of Bandon, County Cork.
In 1832 a new boundary was formed for electoral purposes closely encircling the town, and comprising an area of 439acres. It was defined in the Parliamentary Boundaries (Ireland) Act 1832 as:
The borough had an oligarchic constitution. 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. 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.
Before 1832 the parliamentary franchise for this constituency was extremely restricted. Only the provost (who was the returning officer for the borough) and the twelve burgesses were enfranchised. The population of the town, in 1821, was 10,179. All the elections in this period were unopposed returns; except for one election in 1831, where only ten voters participated and eleven votes were cast (including the returning officer's casting vote).
Stooks Smith gives an account of this contested election. It was the second by-election of 1831. As his book is out of copyright, the whole passage is set out below.
The franchise was expanded in 1832 under the Representation of the People (Ireland) Act 1832, when the £10 householders were added to the electorate and the registration of voters was introduced. In the election later that year, there were 266 registered electors in Bandon and 233 votes were cast in the general election. It appears, from the list of MPs and the report of the 1831 election, that the choice of the borough electorate both before and after 1832 was influenced by aristocratic patrons like the Duke of Devonshire and the Bernard family (whose head had the title of Earl of Bandon). If a Bernard was not elected then quite prominent political figures, notably the future Whig leaders George Tierney and Lord John Russell, were sometimes returned for the borough.
In 1868 the incumbent Bernard MP was defeated by William Shaw, standing in the Liberal interest. Later in his career Shaw was an associate of Isaac Butt in the Home Rule League. After Butt's death in 1879, Shaw became the leader of the Home Rule League until he was replaced by Charles Stewart Parnell in 1880.
The constituency was disenfranchised in 1885.[1] The area was then represented in Parliament as part of South East Cork, one of seven divisions of the former constituency of County Cork.