From Ballyboyle to Corglass... a Boyle family's story
Part 1 - Ballyboyle - our ancient ancestors
Census of Ireland 1901
Although censuses had been carried out in Ireland since 1821, little or nothing of the 19th century censuses have survived. Thankfully, the 1901 and 1911 censuses have survived and are fully available online.
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By the time of the 1901 census, the distribution pattern had not changed significantly. From a population (reduced by emigration) of just under 4½ million there were 10,566 Boyles and 1,034 O’Boyles, the latter concentrated in Mayo and Antrim. The frequency is about 25.8 per 10,000 people, and the heavy concentration in Donegal is apparent in the map[1], with 41% all the Boyles in the country residing there, densely so on the western coastal area.
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These maps also show some interesting patterns for the distribution of O’Boyles. In Mayo, O’Boyles are concentrated in the north-west of the county, where there are few Boyles. The opposite is the case for the east of the county. This might indicate two distinct patterns of settlement, probably at different time periods. The migration led by Colonel Rory O’Donnell in the mid-1660s has already been noted, and the O’Boyles of the north-west corner (and other Donegal names) can be attributed to this. The Boyles in the east of the county may well represent a later or at least a separate migration
O’Boyles in Antrim also show a distinctive pattern, with two centres. One is concentrated on the north shore of Lough Neagh in the Toome area, and the other is focussed on the Glens area, especially Glenarm. Again, this suggests two separate migrations.
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[1] https://www.barrygriffin.com/surname-maps/irish/
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In the 1669 Hearth Money Roll (a listing of property taxpayers) there is only one O’Boyle in the Toome area so it does not seem that they were as yet well established in there, whereas all the other O’Boyles (at least six names on the Roll) are located close to the Earl of Antrim’s base.
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The Earl, Randall MacDonnell and Turlough Roe O’Boyle were both members of the Council of the Catholic Confederation, so they would have known each other personally. This connection lends credence to the story that some O’Boyles migrated to MacDonnell lands in Antrim. MacDonnell was one of the very few Catholic landed gentry to keep ownership of his estates after the confiscations and so it is possible that he was in a position to assist Turlough.by settling some of his kinsmen (possibly his immediate descendants) on the Earl’s estate.
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Boyles, on the other hand, are more widely and thinly dispersed, and in Antrim and also in Down they occur in areas which had been heavily settled by incomers from the Scottish Lowlands even well before the formal Ulster Plantation. In fact, Antrim and Down were not included in the Plantation scheme as they were deemed sufficiently de-Gaelicised already. So who were these Boyles, and where did they come from? Even though it was recorded some three centuries after the Plantation, the information on religion from the 1911 census gives some clues.