Irish Bronze Sculpture Cork Road Bowling Interest Approximat...

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Irish Bronze Sculpture Cork Road Bowling Interest Approximately 12 Inches High
There is no written evidence as to how or when bowling came to Ireland. One theory is that the sport came with the Dutch soldiers when William of Orange came to Ireland in 1689.
Dean Swift makes a reference to the sport in 1728 in a poem called 'A Pastoral Dialogue':

When you saw Taddy at bowling plan.
You sat, and lowd him all the sunshine day.

In 1812, a spectator watching uncles of the Bronte sisters playing in County Down wrote:

Every uncle of elastic force in the great
muscular frame was called into action while playing.

The sports seems to have been quite widespread throughout the country in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries but today the stronghold of the game remains in Cork.
It is interesting to note that Margery Forester in her book, Michael Collins - The Lost Leader, records the great Corkman's ambition to be a champion bowler. Each evening on his way home from school the young Collins would practice with his cousins, always using the twenty four ounce bowl, insisting that it would help to develop his muscles better for the day when he was big enough to use the full twenty eight ounce bowl. (Sixteen ounce was the weight used by youths in those days.)