Discussion
NB: One aim of the DNA Project is to determine which, if any, modern lines conform to explanations of our surname origins in Ireland. That is, if there is any truth to the explanations themselves which has not been proven. This participant has not found any strong evidence to rule out the possibility his line may in fact descend from O'Buadhaigh, and has some reason to believe that it might. Only one genetic Bowe/s line, if any, would have descended from the individual O'Buadhaigh, but since people joined the sept and took the name who were not related, more than one genetic line could have ancient ties to the sept. The fun continues! Update: I've posted some preliminary data relating to Corca Laoidhe DNA.
From the Participant
"The journey of discovery to identify and understand my own 'Bowe' origins/location, continues to challenge, intrigue and tantalize. It is a forest of speculation, enlightened occasionally by what is still the developing ‘science’ of genetic genealogy. At best we can only turn to Occam’s Razor for any meaningful probabilities, particularly when trying to associate specific ethnological groups with either a Haplogroup/Haplotype. The plain truth is that it is at this stage impossible, with any certainty, to link a Haplogroup with a specific ethnological group, at best we can only employ other factors such as family origins and names to begin to infer some such association. [The ethnographic origins of some haplogroups are better understood than others. Greater clarity can be expected as the data grows.] In the case of Ireland that is both hopeful yet complicated by the nature of genealogical records, themselves open to bias, political doctoring, and exotic invention. Yet there are strands of truth and probability too and the Bowe surname (the Irish version at least) has some fascinating links, most prominently perhaps to an ancient Sept/group called the Corca Laiodhe.
"My Haplogroup having recently been confirmed as R-U106* (R1b1b2a1a) I consider the Corca Laiodhe connection relevant to my own folks, even though there’s no clear agreement on ethnological association or source area for this group, When it first appeared this Haplogroup was wrongly attributed to Friesia (part of modern-day Netherlands) due to its fairly high frequency in that region, although high percentages exist in Belgium and Austria.
"More recently it has been determined by one researcher that R-U106* has the highest variance in Ireland (it has a low percentage there) which indicates it may well have originated there, or have reached Ireland very quickly after R-U106* emerged. This would suggest it arrived in Ireland at a very early stage, possibly an indication of a migration from continental Europe which may well have introduced the Erainn (Corca Laiodhe) people.
"That said it must be noted that some currently identified sub-clades of the R-U106 Haplogroup could well be linked to later Friesian or Saxon groups that invaded Britain, and much later migrated to Ireland as part of the various colonizations. I rule this out however as a likely origin of my family's presence in Ireland on the following factors:
- "The existence of Bowe/Bowes as an Anglicized version of an earlier Gaelic name, which I share.
- The general fact that the overwheming majority of English 'settlers' to Ireland were Protestant, my folks were Catholic Recorded Bow families as a 'principal Irish family' in Tipperary (where my folks came from) in the 17th Century
- Generally speaking English 'settlers' were often financially advantaged to local Irish families, my ancestors seem to have been particularly poor, even by Irish standards, not appearing as renting property or land on later records such as the Tithe Records (1831/41) or the Griffiths Valuation of 1850.
- This plus the fact they could only afford to reach the UK, and not afford a passage to New York, suggests they were in extreme hardship.
- Less likely, but intriguing still relates to the Corca Laiodhe/Buadhaigh connection, as an Erainn people they have strong association with the Belgae of Caesar's time, interestingly too from an area of Europe (Belgium) that currently has a prominent percentage of R-U106
"Further support for the view that my folks derive from deep Gaelic/Celtic beginnings is reflected by FTDNA’s report for my ancestral origins (albeit using only 12 DYS markers) which records the following highest percentages; Ireland 3.4 Switzerland 3.0, Scotland 2.2 and Wales 2.1 (with the value of 2 being significant and 4 highly significant in terms of family origins). Another curious possible connection emerged when I came across one of the O'Driscolls' set of DYS values at YSearch, some of whom are close to my own, one even having the same double reloc value of 36 at CDYa/b. A common, and possibly significant feature appears to be the value of 10 at DYS391, this is common to Scottish and some Irish, and I'm now wondering if this may also be some Erainn indicator. Whatever the case, the O'Driscoll's are a prominent and historic Corca Laiodhe family, whose territory included the location of the Ua Buadhaigh (around the Castlehaven area). Families called O'Bowe were, later in history, recorded in Fermoy too, not too far from south west Tipperary where my own ancestors appear. If this speculation, reasoning and connectivity is sound it may well be that genetic evidence, in support of some of the Irish Bowe/Bowes/Bogue families, could be assembled that indicates such individuals have their beginnings with the Erainn/Corca Laiodhe, descendents of the Ua Buadhaigh Sept of West Cork."
See Driscoll DNA Project: Corca Laoighdhe
and Ossory “The area around Ossory were said to have been anciently occupied, according to some interpretations of Ptolemy's 2nd century map, by tribes referred to as the Brigantes, the Cauci and the Usdiae. The name Osraighe is said to originate from about this time according to the ancient genealogies. The Osraighe were claimed to be one of a group of Munster people known as the Erainn. Some authors believe the Osraighe tribe(s) may have been pushed into the Kilkenny/Laois area by the rise of the Eoghanachta in Munster. They occupied an intermediate position between Mumu (Munster) and Laigin (Leinster) in the centuries between 500 and 800, and were essentially a buffer between these two great southern provinces.”