BANTRY, town, Co. Cork, Ireland, 58m. S.W. of Cork by the Great Southern railway. Pop. (1926), 2,681. It is a centre for sea fisheries. It is the terminus of the railway, and was a coaching station on the famous "Prince of Wales" route (named after King Edward VII.) from Cork to Glengarriff and Killarney. The bay, with excellent anchorage, is a picturesque inlet some 2 2m. long by 3 to 6m. broad with several islands. It was the scene of attempts by the French to invade Ireland in 1689 and 1796, and troops of William of Orange were landed here in 1697. Ruins of the so-called "fish palaces" testify to the failure of the pilchard fishery in the i8th century.