The largest and earliest Bowles family in co. Cork seem to have been a branch which I believe had a significant enough impact to be uniquely identified on this site as The Boles of Cork.  This family of three brothers and at least one sister arrived in the early 1600's and over time and several generations became major land owners in co. Cork and spread the family name across southern Ireland.

The only other Bowles documented in Cork in the 1600's was a Simon Bowles mentioned in the 1659 census as being at Mogoalla in Inishskarra parish, Barony of Barreth.  This is likely an old spelling for Magooly which is a couple miles west of Inniscarra village in the old Barony of Barretts and about 15 miles straight west of Cork city.  There was a Simon Bowles of Southwark, Kent, England mentioned in a 1618 Chancery Court document regarding the ownership of a castle in South Limerick near the Cork border who is likely the same person but I don't have any further references for Simon.

There are also a lot of Bowles and Boles records at Youghal who are most likely an undocumented branch of the Boles of Cork.  See The Bowles of Youghal for a discussion of that possibility.

In the late 1700's we also find a Boles family living at Liscarroll in North Cork.  One of the branches of The Boles of Cork had settled at Moyge near Liscarroll in the 1600's so this is possibly a branch which we have not connected up yet, although a Catholic branch.  There is probably quite a story to figure out here yet.  See The Boles of Liscarroll

There was another Catholic Bowles family living in Cork city, co. Cork in the early 1800's.  This family also may be connected to the others somehow but we don't know for sure yet.  See The Bowles of Cork city.

Another likely descendant of The Boles of Cork John Boles Gaggin of Cork played a role in the West Coast of Canada's Gold Rush days of the mid-1800's.