The Possibility of the Bowles of Kilcooly, co. Tipperary's Connection to the Bowles of Oola, co. Limerick
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See also The Bowles of Oola, co. Limerick
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The Bowles of Oola descended from a John Boles who died at Gurtvehane in 1802 at age 76 and was buried in the Oola cemetery which was then in Solohead parish (so he was b. ca. 1726). He was likely the same John Bowles who is listed in the 1776 Religious Census as a Protestant citizen of Doon parish (the parish adjacent to Solohead to the NW). In that same census there are no Bowles listed in the Parish of Solohead although there is one unreadable name in the Protestant list which appears in the transcriptions only as John. From his son George, born ca. 1754, and on down, his descendants were Catholic. He would have married a Catholic woman around 1747-1753.
Anyone who is generally aware of the long history of religious rivalries in Ireland might think it unusual that a Protestant would marry a Catholic in such an environment. However there was a period in Ireland in the mid- to late-1700's when that was not at all unusual, please read The Background to the Protestant/Catholic 'Troubles' Particularly in the Southern Counties in the early 1800's
The Bowles of The Commons in Kilcooly parish in the early 1800's descended from a Catholic line of Bowles who were in Killenaule parish from the early 1700's.
The earliest Bowles references in the Killenaule area so far were a Charles Bowls and wife Anna Delahunty who baptized children there in the Catholic parish in 1748 and 1750 and an Anna Bowls and husband Jacob (James) Meagher who baptized children there in 1748 and 1751. Based on that Charles and Anna Bowls were probably siblings born in the 1720's. The details for Anna Bowls are:
Anna Bowls (b. ca. 1728 or earlier) m. Jacob (James) Meagher
1.
? Meagher bp. May 29, 1748 Killenaule
2.
Joanna Meagher bp. Nov. 17, 1751 Killenaule RC; Godfather: Hugo (Hugh?)
Kelly and Godmother: (blank)
1.1 Peter Bowls bp. Feb. 7, 1748
Killenaule parish
1.2 possibly Edmund Bowls bp. Apr. 1750
Killenaule parish (this entry is largely illegible)
Joseph Bowles (born ca. 1740) married Ellen Mackey about 1760 and settled at Springhill, the townland adjacent to Killenaule. Their children, all Catholic, were the Bowles siblings living at The Commons. Their son George married a Margaret Maher (Meagher) about 1806 and baptized three children at Gortnahoe, the RC parish church for The Commons.
Then in 1821 we have another George Bowles marrying another Margaret Maher (Meagher) in Killenaule. They were likely related to the above George Bowles and Margaret Maher, partly because of their Killenaule connection note but mostly because they had to obtain special dispensation from the church to marry. Their marriage entry in the Killenaule RC Church register states them to be of '3rd & 3rd consanguinity'. That means that they had a common ancestor three generations earlier, they had the same great grandfather. As they would have been born no later than around 1800 their common great grandfather Bowles or Meagher would have been born around 1740 or earlier and one of his children married a Meagher or Bowles.
The above references can be summarized as: Note: both Meagher and Maher are Anglicized versions of the Irish surname Ó Meachair and are interchangeable as the spelling was dependent entirely on the particular parish clerk's idea of how the name should be spelt.
George Bowles m. Margaret Meagher Feb. 28, 1821
Clonbrogan (but entered in the register of
Killenaule RC); Witnesses: Patrick Heany, Charles Fitzpatrick and Margaret
Gleeson
(with special dispensation due to their 3rd &
3rd consanguinity, they had the same grandfather)
1.
Mary Bowles bp. Sept. 25, 1821 Sologhead RC parish, Limerick (which includes
Oola); Sponsors: George Bowles and Mary Dwyer 
2.
Anastasia Bowels bp. May 26, 1826 Sologhead RC; Sponsors: Jacob (James) Dwyer
and Brigitte Mulloy 
3.
George Bowles bp. Apr. 22, 1838 Sologhead RC; (parents lived Kealogue, next to
Oola) Sponsors: Dionysus (often the formal version of Denis) Bowls and Anna
Molloy
That degree of consanguinity would be best
explained as George Bowles and Margaret Meagher each having a parent who
were siblings. There was one marriage in this area between a
Bowles and a Meagher.
George Bowles b. ca. 1785 m. Margaret Maher ca. 1806 (they were living in The Commons in 1807 and 1812 when they baptized children at Gortnahoe (RC) church)
1.
unreadable name (son) bp. Dec. 9, 1807 Gortnahoe, Kilcooly; Sponsors:
William Barran and Mary Courtney
2.
Elizabeth Bowles bp. Feb. 23, 1812 Gortnahoe; Sponsors: Patrick Fogarty and
Rose Bowles (George's sister)
3.
Ellen Bowles bp. June 12, 1822 Gortnahoe; Witness: Catherine Courtney