² Bowen, Elizabeth, Bowen's Court (London, 1942), p. 323Google Scholar. Another account of the garden-party at Mitchelstown Castle is given in the Journal of the Cork Archaeological and Historical Society, new series, Ixiv, p. 63.

³ The Castle itself, home of the Dowager Lady Kingston's second husband, William Downes Webber, was burnt by Irish rebels in 1922.

⁴ The Cork Constitution (Unionist) and the Cork Examiner (Nationalist) were the two newspapers; there was a third organ: Cork Daily Herald (Nationalist).

⁵ The diaries of Daniel Conner of Dunmanway (those surviving, 1871 and 1877) show that the main preoccupations of a country gentleman were his estate, his sport, his family, his health and his involvement in local government. (See Conner Papers, Manch House, Ballineen, Co. Cork, Bundle ‘Personal Papers’.) Similarly, the papers of Savage French of Queenstown show how much paperwork a conscientious landlord had to undertake (French Papers, Cuskinny, Co. Cork).

⁶ It is interesting to note that many of the ‘neutrals’ and Protestant Home Rulers were non-conformists; it seemed axiomatic that members of the dis-established church were always Unionists, though it must be remarked that the leader of the Protestant Home Rulers in Cork city in 1886 was a member of the Church of Ireland; Diocesan Records, Cork: Vestry reports, Easter 1886.

⁷ This group was quite active in the period 1886–93, when it contested several municipal elections: by 1899, the group had more or less ceased to exist (various newspaper reports, November each year, 1886–95).

⁸ The Unionists were represented as follows, in the following occupations in Cork city:

(Census of Ireland, 1881, Province of Munster, County and City of Cork, part 1, vol. ii, no. 2).

⁹ Of the 36 Unionist Aldermen, Councillors and candidates in the period 1891–96, at least 19 were either merchants, large shopkeepers or involved in company management. There was also a railway secretary, a rate collector and a hotel proprietor: conspicuous by their absence were the doctors and solicitors. Although there had been three solicitors of the party on the Council in 1886, by 1891 this element had entirely disappeared. The leader of the Unionists in the city during this period was Alderman (late Sir) John Scott, managing director of a coal-importing and ship-owning concern in the city ( Guy, F., Directory of Cork (Cork, various dates, 1890–1898)Google Scholar; Hodges, R. A., Cork in the Twentieth Century (Brighton, 1911), pp. 145–315)Google Scholar.

¹⁰ It was frequently asserted that the Protestants of Cork city, for instance, paid over half the city rates. See Sir John Scott's remarks at a meeting of Cork Unionist Hundred, 23 November 1892, and again at a meeting of Cork Corporation, 2 December 1894; Cork Examiner, 25 November 1892; 3 December 1894.

¹¹ The agitation against the overtaxing of Ireland as a result of the Financial Relations Commission was started in Cork in September 1897 by a prominent group of Nationalists and Unionists, led by the Earl of Bandon, the Lord Lieutenant for the county. See also the Cork Constitution, 21 November 1898, for a report of a meeting of the Irish Landowners' Convention (Cork) at which the tithes problem was discussed.

¹² As has been noted above (note 9), the leader of the city Unionists during this period was of this class. The second-in-commands—E. J. Julian and W. T. Hungerford—were, respectively, a rate-collector and local businessman, and a prosperous retail merchant and bicycle-dealer. Edwin Hall and Joseph Pike, the two city Unionists most prominently connected with ‘parliamentary Unionism’ in the borough, were both company directors, and Pike owned extensive properties in the City (Local Government Board enquiry in Cork, 10 March 1899; Guy, F., Directory of Munster (Cork 1886)Google Scholar; Hodges, , Cork in the Twentieth Century, pp. 228, 271)Google Scholar.

¹³ The numbers on the Corporation between 1891 and 1898 reflect the position of the Unionists during the split. In 1895 the parties were represented as follows: Unionists 18 seats, Parnellites 22, anti-Parnellites 16. The real value of the split to the Unionists can be seen in the municipal election results in 1891 and 1892: in those years they gained three seats and four seats respectively (Cork Constitution, 26 November 1891; 26 November 1892). In 1894 a Unionist Mayor was elected by a combination of Unionist and antiParnellite groups: and during the period 1891–98 the High Sheriff (elected by the Corporation each year) was always a Unionist (save in 1894). (For a report of the Mayoral election of 1895 see Cork Examiner, 3 December 1895.)

¹⁴ As a result of the municipal elections of January 1899, held under the Local Government Act, a strong body of labour delegates, nine in number, made their way into the Corporation; Cork Constitution, 7 January 1899.

¹⁵ The statistic of 700 is taken from de Burgh, U. H., Landowners of Ireland (Dublin, n.d., but probably 1878)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Using De Burgh's figures it would appear that well over half the land-lords were resident in Cork (556); 115 were resident in other parts of Ireland, and 60 were resident in other parts of the United Kingdom, or abroad. Twentyone landowners owned over 10,000 acres, while a distribution graph shows that 552 landowners owned estates between 500 and 3,000 acres in size.

¹⁷ Lists of Town Commissioners for Bandon, Clonakilty, Fermoy, Kinsale, Mallow, Midleton, Queenstown, Skibbereen, and Youghal; Guy, , Directory for Munster (1886)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ The Conner Papers, for instance, contain a voluminous correspondence between Daniel Conner and his solicitor, Thomas Downes of Skibbereen on all sorts of subjects; James Penrose-Fitzgerald, agent to the absentee Earl of Midleton, was in a similar position; Public Record Office, Midleton Estate Papers, Letter-Books.

¹⁹ Census of Ireland, 1881, Province of Munster, County and City of Cork, part 1, vol. ii, no. 2.

²⁰ Ibid., Table xxix. The percentage of Protestants in each of the towns was as follows:

²¹ Fleming, Lionel, Head or Harp (London, 1965), p. 36Google ScholarPubMed.

²² The percentage of Protestants ranged from 29.4% in Templebreedy parish (which included a military establishment a t Crosshaven) to 0.04%; in Nohovaldaly (in the extreme north-west of the county). The range was very great (Census, 1881, Table xxviii).

²³ In the west and south-west of the county was a relatively large number of Protestant tenant farmers—Hawkes, Goods, Kingstons, Damerys, Batemans and Hobbses. SeeFleming, , Head or Harp, p. 22Google Scholar; Cork, Cloyne and Ross Diocesan Records, Baptism Register; personal information; Shannon, Catherine, ‘The Kingston Family in West Cork’, The Diocesan Magazine of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, 1893Google Scholar.

²⁴ Minutes of various Boards of Guardians, Cork Courthouse.

²⁵ On a national scale, this ‘crumbling of morale’ is demonstrated by the reaction to th e Financial Relations Commission, the Devolution scheme, and the split in the Irish Unionist Alliance in 1912–13.

²⁶ Bowen, , Bowen's Court, p. 13Google Scholar; Fleming, , Head or Harp, p. 22Google Scholar.

²⁷ One only has to read Edith Somerville's books (especially the ‘Irish R.M.’ stories) in order to realize this. See also th e Conner Papers, Diaries, 1871 and 1877.

²⁸ At the turn of the century, the city and county gentry were quick to take up golf and motoring. SeeGuy, , Directory of Cork (1913), pp. 178–81Google Scholar, for a list of motor owners. About 134 out of 254 owners were Protestants. For a description of how jealously the gentry guarded their golf courses, Inglis, Brian, West Briton (London, 1964), pp. 18–19Google Scholar.

²⁹ For those lucky to live near the garrison towns—Fermoy, Cork, Cross-haven, Buttervant, Charleville—there was always a changing nucleus of young officers ready to supply the raw material for a spinster-ridden gentry.

³⁰ For example, Augustine Roche, leader of the Parnellites in Cork, three times Lord Mayor, rich merchant and collector of antiques, Nationalist M. P. for Cork city in 1905, could mix easily with the gentry. He was one of the few Catholics invited to the wedding of Sir John Arnott's daughter in 1898; Cork Examiner, 17 September 1896; alsoHodges, , Cork in the Twentieth Century, p. 278Google Scholar.

³¹ Fleming, , Head or Harp, p. 36Google Scholar.

³² Private information.

³³ There were 11,464 Protestants in Cork in 1881: their percentage numbers in the various city wards were as follows:

(Census, 1881, Table xxix).

³⁴ The records of the Cork Orange Lodges no longer exist.

³⁵ The Parnell split exacerbated religious differences in the city. The Unionists were quick to raise the cry of ‘priestly dictation’ (Cork Constitution, 14 June 1892; 25 June 1892; 4 November 1893; 20 May 1898).

³⁶ Guy, , Directory for Munster (1886), pp. 340–42Google Scholar.

³⁷ See correspondence in the Cork Constitution, November 1898.

³⁸ Except during some poor-law elections in electoral divisions near the city; see Cork Constitution, 5 March 1892.

³⁹ The classic example of this occurred in 1891 when Parnell's death caused a by-election to be held in Cork. Scott, the leader of the city Unionists, was passed over by the County Club and Captain D. R. Sarsfield, a county Orangeman, was chosen as Unionist candidate; see Cork Examiner, 10 October 1891; 24 October 1891. Even Balfour, the Chief Secretary, was against the local Unionists fielding a candidate; Curtis, L. P. Jnr, Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, 1880–1802 (Princeton, 1965), p. 321Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ For a further discussion of this point, see Curtis, L. P. Jnr, ‘The Anglo-Irish Predicament’, Twentieth Century Studies, iv (11 1970)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ Sir George Colthurst at Blarney, addressing a mainly Unionist audience during the county council elections of 1899 on 23 March 1899; report in the Cork Constitution, 26 March 1899.

⁴² SirPlunkett, Horace, Ireland in the New Century (London 1904)Google Scholar, especially Part II (‘Practical’).

⁴³ Daniel Conner's Diaries shows this emphasis on a duty to local administration; his entries relate (for December 1877) his driving five miles alone through snow and wind in order to attend Petty Sessions in Dunmanway; this was when he was in his late seventies.

⁴⁴ The movement was led principally by A. H. Smith-Barry, owner of 27,000 acres in Ireland, Liberal M. P. for County Cork 1867–74, Unionist M. P. for South Huntingdonshire, 1886–1900, created Baron Barrymore, 1902, chairman of the Irish Unionist Alliance, 1911–13, died 1925.

⁴⁵ First Annual Report of Cork Defence Union, published in the Cork Constitution, 16 November 1886.

⁴⁶ Curtis, ‘The Anglo-Irish Predicament’.

⁴⁷ Pellew, George, In Castle and Cabin (New York, 1887), p. 83Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ See the description of one such tea-party meeting of the Primrose League, in Cork Examiner 18 August 1971, described by Patrick Madden.

⁴⁹ See Lord Castleton's remarks (‘Organize! Orangize!’) at a meeting in Cork, 26 March 1886 (Cork Constitution, 27 March 1886); also, Smith-Barry, A. H. at a Primrose League meeting in Cork (‘we must fight the registration and attempt conversions’) on 1 10 1890Google Scholar (Cork Constitution, 3 October 1890).

⁵⁰ Such men as Colonel William Johnson of Fermoy, who was active in the Primrose League, the Unionist Clubs, and local government; A. H. Smith-Barry; and (Sir) Robert Penrose-Fitzgerald, Bart, M.P. for Cambridge, 1885–1905, were all important in the Unionist political sphere in Cork.

⁵¹ For instance, during the Home Rule crisis of 1893, when much money was subscribed to an anti-Home Rule fund, and during the Boer War, when an even larger amount was forthcoming.

⁵² Lady Mary Aldworth (aunt to the Earl of Bandon) on 21 July 1898, at the annual meeting of the Blackwater Vale (Co. Waterford) Habitation; Cork Constitution, 27 July 1898.

⁵³ P(ublic) R(ecord) O(ffice), N(orthern) I(reland), D989A/7/2; annual report of th e Irish Unionist Alliance, 1898.

⁵⁴ Cork Constitution, 20 April 1891, editorial.

⁵⁵ For example, see the report of the annual meeting of Mitchelstown, Fermoy and Castlelyons Habitation; Cork Constitution, 16 May 1898.

⁵⁶ One of the accusations brought against the Cork Habitations by the nationalist press was that the League was run entirely by women; there is no doubt that they provided the vast majority of the active members.

⁵⁷ Cork Constitution, 29 January 1891; 20 April 1891; 4 June 1892; 9 September 1892; 23 May 1895. Guest speakers at meetings during this period included Sir William Marriott, M. P., Sir John Columb, M. P., Lord Ernest Hamilton, Lord Templetown, Lord Castletown and Hon. John De Grey.

⁵⁸ Cork Examiner, 30 June 1891, editorial.

⁵⁹ P.R.O., N.I., D1327/I/2; Unionist Clubs' Council, minute book of the Executive Committee, 3 October 1893.

⁶⁰ See Sir Augustus Warren's speech at the Unionist Clubs' Council meeting, 13 March 1893; P.R.O., N.I., D1327/I/1; minute book of the Executive Committee.

⁶¹ See correspondence with the secretary of the Irish Unionist Alliance read at the executive committee meetings of the Alliance; P.R.O., N.I., D989A/I/5; and minute book of the Unionist Clubs' Council, 24 August 1893; P.R.O., N.I., D1327/I/1.

⁶² A Cork delegate, E. F. Sanders, put the relationship between the clubs and the Alliance thus: ‘The Unionist Clubs outside of Ulster are an integral part of the Unionist Club organization of Ulster. They will work in perfect harmony with the Irish Unionist Alliance, and will assist that body in every way possible but will only take orders from the Unionist Clubs' Council and its Executive.’ (P.R.O., N.I., D1327/I/1, 13 March 1892, minute book of the Unionist Clubs' Council.)

⁶³ From an undated list in longhand, P.R.O., N.I., D989A/5/1. This list is similar (except for one club) to that given in the Annual Report of the Irish Unionist Alliance, 1897, p. 16 et seq.

⁶⁴ See various reports in the Cork Constitution, March-April 1893. The clubs also raised money for the Alliance General Election fund in July, 1895; see Cork Examiner, 8 July 1895; Cork Constitution, 13, 17 July 1895. A special report of the executive committee of the Unionist Clubs' Council stated that eight southern clubs (six of which were in Cork) contributed £367 to the joint Unionist Clubs' Council-Irish Unionist Alliance Fund.

⁶⁵ A hotch-potch of Unionist candidates contested the six divisions of County Cork in 1885; in Cork city, the two seats were challenged in that year. Cork was, however, one of the few places where the Unionists could put up a decent fight; it was the only place outside Ulster and Dublin in which the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (the forerunner of the Irish Unionist Alliance) suggested a contest in 1886; P.R.O., N.I., D989A/1/2; Minute Book of the Organizing Sub-Committee of the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union, 21 May 1886; also 3 June, special meeting.

⁶⁶ Cork Constitution, April-June 1892, various dates.

⁶⁷ Ibid., 2 November 1893; 29 March 1898.

⁶⁸ In April 1892 the Unionist organization in Cork city was reorganized; however, not until February 1893 was any attempt made to communicate this to the Irish Unionist Alliance in Dublin; P.R.O., N.I., D989A/8/2, letter file, Irish Unionist Alliance papers, Sir John Scott to R. G. Cox (secretary of the Irish Unionist Alliance), 28 February 1893, detailing lists of officers.

⁶⁹ On a national scale there were the examples of Lord Dunraven and Sir Horace Plunkett; on a local scale. Sir John Scott (who headed the poll at the 1899 municipal elections in Cork city), and the Earl of Bandon, who was returned unopposed in April 1899 to a seat on Bandon Urban District Council; Cork Constitution, 18 January 1899; 8 April 1899; see alsoRobinson, Lennox, Bryan Cooper (London, 1931), p. 44Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ The Nationalist support given to the Unionists R. M. D. Sanders and J. R. B. Newman during the county council elections (Cork) of 1899 is evidence of this; Shannon, Catherine, ‘Local government in Ireland, the politics and administration’ (unpub. M.A. thesis, National University of Ireland, 1963), pp. 191–94Google Scholar.

⁷¹ At the first Cork county council election in 1899, nine Unionists offered themselves for election, for the first and last time. No Unionists stood in 1902, 1905, 1908, 1911 and 1914; Cork Examiner, 7–10 April (annually) 1899–1914.