Bandon

Bandon was founded in 1604 by English settlers during the Plantation of Munster, and for a long time Catholics were barred from living in the walled town. A sign on its gates is said to have welcomed anyone 'except a Papist', and someone wrote underneath that the same was written on the gates of hell. Christ Church, Kilbrogan, is the oldest purpose-built post-Reformation Protestant church in Ireland.

In 1588 Phane Beecher of London took the seignory of Castlemahon, and in 1604 his son Henry founded Bandon there with other English settlers, under a by-law that no Catholic could live in the town. James I made it a borough in 1614, and Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, was a patron, though not, as he claimed, its founder. In 1689 Protestant townspeople expelled the Irish Army garrison, but a larger force under Justin McCarthy retook the town. By 1834 it had seven Orange lodges, more than Cork city. In the 19th century it was an industrial centre for brewing, tanning, distilling and milling, and Allman's Distillery at one point made over 600,000 gallons of whiskey a year.

Arthur Percival, who later surrendered Singapore in 1942, commanded the British garrison here in 1920–21, and Castle Bernard, seat of Lord Bandon, was burned during the War of Independence. Between 1911 and 1926 the non-Catholic population fell from 688 to 375. Ten Protestant men were shot on 27–29 April 1922; the historian Peter Hart argued the killings were sectarian, while Niall Meehan and Brian Murphy argued they were political or military, aimed at informers. Michael Collins was killed in the ambush at Béal na Bláth, about 9.6 km away. The river has flooded the town many times, and a flood relief scheme was finished in December 2022.

Drawn from the History section of the Wikipedia article on Bandon ↗, rewritten here and adding nothing it does not say; licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

• Farran · holy well · 14 km
• Kinneigh · round tower · 15 km
• Kilcrea Castle · castle · 13 km
• Desmond Castle (Kinsale) · castle · 14 km

Straight-line distances from the town centre, from each site's documented coordinates.

• Kinsale · Christmas Eve 1601: the Gaelic order's last throw fails in a dawn attack that went wrong. Nine centuries of Ulster kingship ended here, 300 miles from home.
• Béal na Bláth · The bend in the road where Michael Collins was shot on 22 August 1922, in his own county, by his own former comrades.
• The Blarney Stone · The goddess Clíodhna told Cormac MacCarthy to kiss a stone before he went to court, and he talked his way out of trouble. Another version puts it before Elizabeth I. The stone was built into the castle in 1446; the legend is first described in print in 1785, so the tradition is younger than the wall it sits in.

All of these are pinned on the Hidden Ireland map.