The Bowles family of Ballickmoyler, Queens co. (now co. Laois) would have been tenants of the Cooper family for over 100 years.

Around 1600, as part of a plan to secure the seized estates of the rebellious O'Mores and O'Connors, Queen Elizabeth I granted thousands of acres of land in Killabban parish to an English landowner who then populated his lands with Protestant farmers.  By the late 1600's the area was owned by Richard Saunders of Saunders Court, co. Wexford.   Edward Cooper of Newtown, co. Carlow, acquired a lifetime lease on part of this land in 1714.  See The Early History of the Cooper Family and The Coopers of Cooper's Hill Family Tree.  The Bowles may have arrived with the Coopers from co. Carlow as there are ongoing connections between the Bowles of Ballickmoyler and an area of Carlow very close to Newtown.  We don't know when the Bowles arrived there or where they came from yet for certain but they were there by the 1740's.  The discharge papers for Michael Bowles, a sergeant in the 29th Foot Regiment in England, shows that he was born about 1744 in Killaben parish near Carlow town.

The Coopers centered their own estate, Cooper Hill Demesne, on Cooper Hill about 1 mile south of Ballickmoyler village and 4 miles north of the town of Carlow.  The "big house" on Cooper Hill was built about 1717 and was added to later but the front section of the current house, including the original front door, dates to that time.

The last descendants of the Coopers of Coopers Hill family were killed fighting in the First World War after which the estate and the house fell back into Catholic Irish hands.   Today the Brennan family lives in The Big House and farms the estate, although with somewhat less land than the origin owners.

Records from the earlier period have not been discovered yet but later records including the 1824 tithe applotment for  Queen's county list: