Earls of Bandon/Lord Bandon
Francis Bernard, 1st Earl of Bandon (1755-1830), 1772, Castle Bernard, Bandon, only son James Bernard and Esther Smith d Percy Smith. M Lady Catherine Henrietta Boyle d Richard, 2nd Earl of Shannon. MP Ennis 1778-83, Delegate 1783 to Irish Volunteer convention. Subscriber, James Mullalla, Review of Irish Affairs 1688-1795. She arranged for donation of site for Gallows Hill catholic Church in thanks for Fr. Shinnick curing her son later 2nd Earl quested to be president of Bandon Brunswick Constitutional Club 1828 donated £50. Non marital children. Bandonbridge in the Irish Parliament until 1790. Lady Charlotte Bernard, 2nd daughter married 3rd Viscount Doneraile. Freeman of Cork 1777. 1805 Return by Commissioners Appointed under Act 40, George 111, cap.34, King of England Compensation for Abolition of Pocket and Rotten Boroughs. 1819 Member of the Association Incorporated for Discontinuancy Vice and Promoting the Knowledge and Practise of The Christian Religion. Rathcormac, Francis Earl of Bandon, Sampson Stawell (Kinsale) Viscount Doneraile, Trustees in will of Lord Riversdale, 1787, (Hull, Schull family), £15,000/£17.3 Million. Glowing obituary to him as a resident Landlord
Right Honourable Honourable James 2nd Earl of Bandon, Custos Rotorum, (1785-1856), Castlebernard, FRANCIS (1st EARL of BANDON) and HARRIET (Boyle) had James (heir and 2nd Earl born 14th June 1785 in Bandon and died 31st October 1856 at Castle Bernard) m 13th March, 1809 in Cashel Mary Susan Brodrick eldest daughter of Charles, Archbishop of Cashel and sister of Charles, 6th Viscount Midleton. Mary was born 9th October 1787 and died 23rd April 1870, buried in Bandon. Due to rising war related prices land rents estimated 1811 at £30,000. Succeeded to title and estate after his father’s death in 1830. Following a large Protestant meeting 1834 at Castlebenard nominated to prepare a petition to the British King and Parliament with the Rev. Somers Payne, Councillor Mannix, Lords Berehaven and Bandon. Subscriber Lewis Richard Dowden papers: 1837. 1842 Subscriber Jacksons Co. and City Directory. 1844 Printed handbill/notice , ‘Cork Art Union for the promotion of the fine arts in the South of Ireland’, annual subscription appeal. President is Lord Viscount Bernard MP (Lord Bandon). Printed by W Scraggs, 102 Patricks Street. (1p) Subscriber John Ryan, 1845 ’20 Years of Popish Persecution’. Made huge efforts during the Famine to secure relief. Co. Grand Master Orange Order. Fellow Royal Society 1845. Member Commission on Magistrates 1838 subscriber, 2 copies, 1861 to Smith’s History of Cork. Bandon 1869.
Right Honourable Francis Bernard, 3rd Earl of Bandon, Eton, M.A., D.C.L, Oxford (1817-1877), Castlebernard, son Francis 2nd Earl of Bandon (1755-1830) and Mary Susan Albina Brodrick. MP Bandon 1831. Chairing Famine Relief Meeting Dunmanway 1846. 1857 member Kilkenny and South-East of Ireland Archaeological Society. Member Irish Society Antiquaries 1861. Colonel Royal Cork Artillery Militia. Subscriber 1861 Rev. Gibson’s History of Cork. Promoter flax growing West Cork 1850s. Promoting mineral development in West Cork including barytes mines on his Dereenlomane property, Ballydehob. 1870 appointed Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotorum of Cork County. His obituary noted that despite his extreme political religious views he was allegedly held in high esteem by all classes. After his funeral a meeting of his tenant was held at the Devonshire Arms Hotel, in Bandon and he and his father were praised for their treatment of tenants honouring leases unlike other local landlords through theri agent his uncle Colonel Bernard for 40 years. . Frequently sitting in Bandon Petty Session Court which adjourned for a week on his death. His funeral to family crypt Ballymodan attended by Royal Cork Artillery Militia, South Cork Infantry Militia. As a consequence of his death the following meets were cancelled, Viscount Doneraile Hounds, Castlefreke Hounds, Castlemore Hounds, Upton Harriers, South Union Fox Hounds. Probate 1877, executor James Francis Bernard, 4th Earl £18,000
Right. Hon. James Francis 4th Earl of Bandon (1850-1924) , (see also Bernard) K.P., 1871, Castlebernard, Bandon. Registered Vestryman of Christ Church, Kilmeen, 1870. 1903, Sale. Lord Bandon gives notice of his intention to sell his estates in Co Cork – extensive holdings with some 15,000 tenants. 1874-1877 on the staff of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Abercorn. Chairman Irish Landowners Association 1910 Listed 1913, listed 1922. 1888. Landlords, Lord Bandon, Duke of Devonshire, Lord Bandon owns 40,941 acres in Co Cork, Duke of Devonshire has 32,550 acres. Eviction of some Bantry tenants 1880s, somewhat surprising as the Earl of Bandon were of the better class of Landlord. Two of the three largest landowners in the Co. His 41,000 acres were sold post 1903 to the Land Commission on what was regarded as fair terms. At the time 15,000 tenants. It is likely that his Land Agents the Dohertys Bandon Solicitors received a considerable amount of the proceeds as they had advanced multiple mortgages to Lord Bandon over the years. 1877 appointed Lord Lieutenant for Co. Cork, a position held by his father and grandfather. Married Georgina Dorothy Evans Freke d 7th Lord Carbery and wife Harriet Shouldham, the Dunmanway Shouldhams are descended in the female line from a McCarthy heiress who converted. 1883 President Cork Industrial Exhibition and in 1902-3 patron of Cork Industrial Exhibition. 1900 Knight of St. Patrick. Chairman Bandon Board of Guardians and Bandon Town Commissioners. 1919 elected President of a group proposing a War Monument for Cork. Castlemahon was burned by IRA and kidnapped in 1921. Compensation paid by the Irish Government as follows for the house £37,000, furniture £43,300. Francis Bernard, great-grandfather of the first Earl, was a lawyer and politician while Francis’ younger brother Arthur is the 7th-great grandfather of Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada.[4][5] James Bernard, father of the first Earl, was a politician. He died at Princes Gardens London. His funeral service in London was attended by officers of the Cork Artillery.
The family seat, Castle Bernard, built on ruins of former O’Mahony Castle, was one of the great houses burned during the troubles by the IRA under Sean Hales on 21 June 1921. The home was burned as a counter-reprisal measure against British policy of burning the homes of suspected Irish republicans.
Lord Bandon was kidnapped and held hostage for three weeks being released on 12 July. The IRA threatened to have him executed if the British went ahead with executing IRA prisoners. During his captivity, Bandon reportedly coolly played cards with his captors, who seem to have treated him fairly well. Reportedly, Lord Bandon would give one of his captors, Daniel (Dan) O’Leary (also known an Leabhair, Irish for ‘Book’, based on the fact he was so well read), money each day for Leabhair to travel from the house in Kilcolman townland, to Slatterys pub in Ahiohill to purchase Clonakilty Wrastler (a local beer).
Unlike other West Cork estates that were founded on forfeiture of the former owners for ‘Rebellion” the Bandon Estate was largely assembled by the legal fees generated by Francis Bernard, Bandon born Dublin Barrister and later judge.
In 1877 the Cork Examiner in a comment piece referred to the families public spirited nature in promoting native industries, n being a Landlord family who lived locally. However it mentions that the reputation was blighted by a deep sectarian streak and a hostility to the Catholic religion that of the majority of the Irish population. The Earl and his wife were deeply involved in Protestant evangelicals and proselytization including support in the case of the Earl of the REv. Fisher mission at Teampall n mBocht in the Mizzen Peninsula
Appraisal
Despite its ruinous condition, this imposing castellated country house has retained its historic form and a great deal of its fabric. Built in the Classical style in the final years of the eighteenth century for Francis Bernard, the first earl of Bandon, it was remodelled and extended in the nineteenth century in the Gothic Revival style. The main block displays classically inspired proportions, breakfronts and bowed rear bay, while the later battlemented stone parapet walls, turrets, bartizans, balistrariae, arrow-loops and panel-tracery mask its regular classical character. The attached ruined medieval tower house of the O’Mahoney clan which was acquired by the family in early seventeenth century adds archaeological interest. Burnt as a symbol of British occupation in 1921, the house and its related buildings remain a spectacular addition to the architectural heritage and are a reminder of the wealth and prosperity of the demesne in the past.
Around 1971 Paddy Madden the Cork County Librarian acquired the papers of the Bandon Estate which are now in the Cork Archives, largely uncatalogued: https://corkarchives.ie/
According to Burke, the first Francis Bernard settled in Ireland around the time of Elizabeth I. In 1703 Francis Bernard purchased parts of the Earl of Clancarty estate in the barony of Muskerry, including Ballytrasna. A descendent, also Francis Bernard, was created Viscount Bernard and Earl of Bandon in 1800. The Earl of Bandon’s estate in county Cork amounted to almost 41,000 acres in the 1870s. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation, the estate was among the principal lessors in the parishes of Skull, barony of West Carbery, Ballinadee, Ballymoney, Desertserges, Kilmaloda, Kinneigh, barony of East Carbery, Ardfield, Castleventry, Kilkerranmore, Kilmeen, Lislee and Ross, barony of Ibane and Barryroe, Liscarroll and Buttevant, barony of Orrery, Kilmore, Knockavilly, barony of Kinalea, Athnowen, barony of East Muskerry, Caherlag, Carrigtohill, barony of Barrymore and Ballymodan, barony of Kinalmeaky. A Colonel Bernard, resident in India, was the owner of over 900 acres in county Waterford in the 1870s. The Waterford estate derives from Anne Bernard, who married Robert Foulkes of Youghal in the eighteenth century but bequeathed her estate to her nephew, Stephen Bernard. Sadleir, referring to the 1770s, mentions “Barnard of Prospect Hall, lives mostly in London” and notes that Stephen Bernard was MP for Bandon, 1727-1757.
https://landedestates.ie/family/2500
Bandon Estate Rental Records, Durrus area 1854
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LVgcai4i4QWpyLFvKhEgQAMjtdhjI6VhRrBr2XMWC2U/edit#gid=0
West Cork History 