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See also Birth/Marriage/Death References for Bowles in Tipperary

Notes on The Great Emigrations from co. Tipperary to Canada and to Australia

The highlight of my Bowles research in 2011: My visit to Cahir and Ballydrehid

Bowles in South Tipperary  (see the map below for the locations mentioned)

From the late 1700's to the early 1800's South Tipperary seems to have had the largest number of Bowles in Ireland.  It's hard to know if these were all members of the same family or if they originated from two or possibly more sources.  The fact that they were largely concentrated in one area of South Tipperary indicates that there may be a connection between many of them.  The very earliest Bowles references here go back to the late 1600's with connections to The Boles of Cork.  From the mid-1700's on we find frequent references to both Protestant and Catholic Bowles in the Fethard/Killenaule area with many indications of a probably common origin for them.  The fact that there is a large geographic overlap for the two lines indicates a possible connection but if there is one it has been ellusive.

The Earliest References

William Penn's "My Irish Journal" documents that on January 13, 1670 Penn attended a meeting with several Friends (i.e. Quakers), including John Boles of co. Cork and George Baker of Cashel, Tipperary, at John Fennell's house near Clogheen, co. Tipperary.  We know that Fennell's house was at Kilcommonbeg near Cahir, co. Tipperary and adjacent to the present day Swiss Cottage.   It may be significant that there are still Boles in Cahir even today.  The John Boles mentioned was a tenant of William Penn's on land near Youghal, co. Cork; I believe this to have been Thomas Boles of Kilbree, co. Cork's son John (born about 1644), see The Boles of Cork.  See also William Penn's 'My Irish Journal'.

That is the earliest connection I can find between the Boles of Cork and the Baker family of Cashel.  In 1682 George Baker's daughter Sarah (born 1661) was married to a John Boles in Cashel.  I believe this to have been Richard Boles of Ballynalty, co. Cork's son John (born 1661), the cousin of the above John Boles.  John and Sarah had two children at Killoskehan, Tipperary and then moved on to Ballintrane, co. Carlow where five more children were born and where Sarah died in 1699.  John soon remarried and moved his family back to Tipperary sometime after 1704.  They built a Great House called Woodhouse near Magorban about 4 miles northwest of Fethard.  See The Bowles of Woodhouse.  Due to the excellent Quaker records which have survived, John's descendants are very well documented with one exception.  John's eldest son George married out of the faith while they still lived in Carlow.   Most of George's children returned to the Quaker faith and married into such prominent Quaker families as the Watsons (of Carlow), Grubbs (of Clonmel) and the Jessops (of Dublin).  However, little is known about one son John who professed to have returned to the Friends faith but then fell out with his grandfather and was and was cut out of his Will.  John's 'scandalous' actions after that caused his denial by the Friends after which he disappears from family and Friends records.  However, I believe I have discovered John in Dublin where he raised a family two of which may have returned to Tipperary and became the ancestors of several of the Bowles families there.  See 7.1.3 John Boles in The Richard Boles of Cork's Family Tree

The Mid-1700's in Fethard and Northeast

Those fragments of the Religious Census of Tipperary which have survived must not be very complete as none of the towns where Bowles were known to be at that time are even included in the trancriptions.

The List of Freemen of the Corporation of Fethard lists six Bowles in that same period:

This doesn't mean that there were six Bowles living in Fethard.  John and George Bowles are the only ones stated to have been locals.  John is the only one actually from Fethard, see The Bowles of Fethard, while George was from Coolquill which is in Lower Crohane parish just east of Killenaule where another Protestant Bowles family lived.  Thomas and Samuel Bowles are both from co. Cork and probably applied for Freeman status with the Corporation of Fethard in order to carry on trade there.  Charles and David could have been from almost anywhere as their two connections were in years when the Sovereign of the Corporation of Fethard was nominating people from locations far from there to be Freemen of Fethard in a vote loading exercise in order to hold onto his position.  See The Bowles as Freemen of The Corporation of Fethard

The List of Freeholders of the County of Tipperary in 1776 only includes two Bowles: ref.

Richard Bowles of Youghal was of The Boles of Cork line and his land would have been in the Woodhouse area as mentioned above.  John Bowles of Fethard is as mentioned above.

The Bowles of Fethard may have been the origin of the Bowles found in the Killenaule area where there were Bowles living from the mid-1700's until the last century.  The Bowles of Killenaule may have been the origins for the Catholic Bowles of Springhill and both the Catholic and Protestant lines of The Bowles of Kilcooly (see map).   Killenaule is very close to the townland of Magorban where a branch of The Boles of Cork lived throughout the 1700's as mentioned above but so far that appears to only be coincidental.

In 1827 a Protestant line from Kilcooly emigrated to settle in Peel county, Ontario, Canada and a Catholic line from there settled at Valcartier, Quebec.   See The Bowles of Peel County and Their Origins in Ireland and The Bowles of Valcartier, Quebec for more information on those lines. 

Two families who were early settlers in Guysborough county, Nova Scotia, are believed to have had a common descent from a Bowles line in this area.  Robert Boles of Boylston, N.S. was the son of John Boles of Fethard who was born about 1744 in Tipperary and raised a family in Fethard.  David Bowles of Intervale, N.S. originally settled near Robert and, despite the difference in the spelling of their surnames, was probably a close relation.  The Fethard line was known to use both the Boles and Bowles spellings.

See The Bowles of Fethard and John Boles of Fethard's Family Tree for more on this family and also The Boles of Guysborough county.

Some of the Fethard family may have moved to Clonmel later as their son Robert is later described as "of Clonmel" and their son Charles is later described as a "shoemaker at Clonmel".  However, this may only be a reference to Fethard being part of the Diocese of Clonmel.  See The Bowles of Clonmel

Many or possibly all of these Bowles lines in the Fethard/Killenaule/Kilcooly area may be related.  See Sorting Out The Bowles of Kilcooly and Killenaule and Area for a discussion of that possible connection and a proposed family tree.

Other Bowles References in South Tipperary

There are a lot of Bowles references in Oola parish which is just to the West of Tipperary town but which straddles the Tipperary/Limerick border.  I have included the Oola, Tipperary references on the Bowles of Oola, Limerick page.

The Bowles of Oola may also be related to these other Bowles.  See The Bowles of Kilcooly, co. Tipperary's Connection to the Bowles of Oola, co. Limerick

About 5 miles north of Cahir on the road to Cashel is the town of New Inn.  There are records for Bowels in the New Inn area from the 1700's who may have adopted the Bowles spelling sometime in the 1800's.  See The Bowles of New Inn

There was a George Bowles at Thurles in 1786.  ref.

Two brothers from the Boles of Fingreagh, co. Leitrim settled in Tipperary in the 1890's, James opened a draper's shop in Thurles and Benjamin opened a shop in Roscrea.  See The Boles of Fingreagh in county Tipperary for more on that line.

Bowles in North Tipperary

James Bowles, a shoemaker, and his wife Elizabeth Butler raised a family at Silvermines in the early 1800's.  I believe that Elizabeth's family was from that area but James' line was from one of the Bowles lines in Southeast Tipperary where we find the large number of Bowles/Boles lines which so far have resisted sorting out.  One of James' sons, William, emigrated to Australia in 1840.  See The Bowles of Silvermines.   In the early 1800's there was a Walter Bowles, gardener who we first find for a short period in Wales and then back in Tipperary working as a gardener at Springhouse near Bansha, then working as a gardener at Johnstown near Carlow and finally settling down in Dublin.  He may have been a son of James Bowles of Silvermines.  See The Bowles Gardeners and The Bowles of Silvermines - Any Connection? 

There is one record for an Andrew Boles at Kilebeg (Kylebeg) near Borrisokane in North Tipperary in 1836.  This may be a descendant of the Boles of Cork line as an Andrew Boles is thought to have been the last Boles to own Woodhouse in South Tipperary in the late 1700's.   reference  As there is one potential connection between Walter Bowles and Kylebeg as shown in the Bowles Gardeners/Silvermines discussion above, if Walter was also connected to the Bowles of Silvermines then both lines may connect back to John Boles of Woodhouse.  This is a really big maybe as these hints of a connection may just be pure coincidences but they warrant further research.

Silvermines was quite a small community.  Its closest larger administrative and market centre was Nenagh about 6 miles to the north.  We do find Bowles references in Nenagh but so far they have all been from a Catholic Bowles branch in co. Clare.  No connection has been found to date between a Bowles in Nenagh and the Protestant line of Silvermines.  As there are so few I have included Templemore (15 miles East of Nenagh) with the Nenagh references.  See The Bowles of Nenagh page.

Map of Tipperary in 1878 showing the areas connected to our Boles/Bowles ancestors: