During the 1730s and 1740s the patron of the largely protestant borough of Bandon, Lord Burlington, entrusted the general management of his Irish affairs to his nephew Henry Boyle, later 1st Earl of Shannon. Upon his death in 1753 his personal interest in the borough passed to his daughter and heir, the wife of the 4th Duke of Devonshire. This was the origin of a dispute between the Shannons and the Devonshires over the control of the borough which persisted until the end of this period. From time to time in the later 18th century the 4th and 5th Dukes attempted to assert the superiority of their interest, but as a rule the Members were returned by the 1st and 2nd Earls of Shannon and the latter’s son-in-law Francis Bernard, 1st Earl of Bandon. Shannon and Bandon certainly made the returns at the general elections of 1802-7. The 5th Duke’s Irish agent, Thomas Knowlton, determined to reassert what he regarded as Devonshire’s proper rights and in 1806 forced Lord Bandon to surrender the tolls and customs and an important lease to the duke. In May 1807 negotiations were begun which resulted in an agreement between Devonshire and Bandon, whose brother-in-law had just become 3rd Earl of Shannon, by which each party agreed to nominate to alternate parliaments. It was a compromise previously suggested by Bandon in 1802, when he was a suitor for the renewal of his leases from the duke. Devonshire therefore took his turn by nominating Tierney for the vacancy.

The agreement was evidently not regarded as entirely binding by either party. By 1812 Knowlton was anxious to persuade the 6th Duke to press his claims further and retain Tierney in his seat, an argument that proved attractive to a Whig leadership short of close boroughs and concerned for some of its important debaters. This plan did not succeed, however, with the result that Lord Bandon made the returns in 1812 and 1820 and Devonshire in 1815 and 1818.

Chatsworth mss, Knowlton to Heaton, 4 Apr., 5 July 1802, 13 Aug. 1806, to Devonshire, 28 Sept. 1812; Wakefield, Account of Ireland, ii. 385; Add. 51829, Devonshire to Holland, 9 Feb. 1818; Hants RO, Tierney mss 21a, 21b; Grey mss, Tierney to Grey, 6, 17 Sept. 1812.