Both the Corca Laoidhe and Eoghanachta accounts state that the Irish precursors to Bowe derive from the name Buadhaigh, meaning victorious. This was not an unusual name, especially in southern Ireland, and can be found in more than one location.
The closest suggestion that the name Bowe may in fact derive from Buadhaigh among the Corca Laoidhe is a 1466 entry in Obligatones pro Annatis Diocesis Ossorienis. It names a family including the variants Jacobus Ybuoy and Patricii Obuoey, the suggestive phrase stating “Jacobus Ybuoy alias Macconbuaga…” [1] Mac con means son of a hound or wolf and buaga may be a variant on "Ua Buadhaigh (now Buaig)," among the hereditary proprietors of Corca Laoidhe. [2]
T.J. Clohosey who edited the Latin version in 1957 believed so. In his footnote to this section he states, “Ybuoey, Obuoey, O' Bowe, in Irish Ua Buadhaigh; Macconbuaga or Mac Con-Buadhaigh appears to be another form of the same name.” [3] He appears to be recording what earlier surname historians have indicated, that Irish precursors to Bowe such as Ybuoey and Obuoey derive from Buadhaigh, but he also draws our attention to a very early association between these variants and a little mentioned variant of Buadhaigh possibly connected to the Corca Laoidhe: Buaga/Buaig.
In fact in the 1659 Census we find as principal names in Carberry, Cork, where the Corca Laoidhe lived: Buoige (27) and O Buoy (38). [4]
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1. Clohosey, Rev. T. J., Ed. (from transcript by Rev. M. A. Costello, O.P.), "Obligationes pro Annatis Diocesis Ossoriensis, 1413-1531," Archivium Hibernicum [Irish Historical Records]. Dublin: Catholic Historical Society of Ireland. Vol. 20 (1957), p. 7 URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487321 Date accessed: 30 August 2010 and http://books.google.com/books?id=HsJnAAAAMAAJ&q=buadhaigh&dq=buadhaigh&hl=en&ei=7LZ6TP_yD4uesQPC7fjsCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA Date accessed: 30 August 2010.
2. “Cork Genealogies, Appendix B, The 'Book of Lecan'," Library Ireland (http://www.libraryireland.com/WestCorkHistory/Genealogies.php Accessed 31 March 2011).
3. Clohosey, Rev. T. J., Ed. (from transcript by Rev. M. A. Costello, O.P.), "Obligationes pro Annatis Diocesis Ossoriensis, 1413-1531," Archivium Hibernicum [Irish Historical Records]. Dublin: Catholic Historical Society of Ireland. Vol. 20 (1957), p. 7 URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25487321 Date accessed: 30 August 2010 and http://books.google.com/books?id=HsJnAAAAMAAJ&q=buadhaigh&dq=buadhaigh&hl=en&ei=7LZ6TP_yD4uesQPC7fjsCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDwQ6AEwBA Date accessed: 30 August 2010.
4. Pender, MA, Seamus, Ed. A Census of Ireland Circa 1659 With Essential Materials from the Poll Money Ordinances 1660-1661. Dublin: Irish Manuscripts Commission, p. 227-8, 2002.