1901 Census Research for Bodenstown, Co. Kildare

Bodenstown Electoral Division Population 1841 to 1901

The Electoral Division of Bodenstown consists of 23 townlands and 6,394 acres, the largest being the townland of Blackhall with 614 acres, the seat of Major Robert Fleetwood Rynd in 1901. The eastern and northern boundary of this division follows the rive Liffey as it meanders from just outside the village of Sallins in the southwest to just south of Clane in the northeast and then over to Straffan in the northeast of the division.

Its southern boundary is traversed several times by the Grand Canal and the railway line traverses the south with the station at Sallins also serving the nearby county town of Naas. 

Theobald Wolfe Tone & Bodenstown

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen which developed into an insurrectionary movement whose objective was Irish independence, has long been associated with Bodenstown, the cemetery there being his final resting place. 

Annual commemorations and orations at his grave take place, typically on a date closest to his June 20th birthday. 

Wolfe Tone was born in Dublin and so his connection to Bodenstown isn’t exactly straightforward. His father, Peter Tone, was a prosperous coach-maker, who also had a farm near Sallins. Peter married Margaret Lamport, the Catholic daughter of a Drogheda sea captain, who traded with the West Indies. Margaret resided at Blackhall, then the home of Thomas Wolfe, where she served as a high-ranking personal assistant to Thomas Wolfe’s wife.  Their son, Theobald Wolfe was the godfather of Peter and Margaret’s son, and they named him in his honour, hence the name Theobald Wolfe Tone, though it was widely believed that Theobald Wolfe was the natural father of the child. 

Wolfe Tone owned a cottage in Blackhall which he referred to in his writings as Chateau Bou (which translates to “Mud House”) before his exile in 1795. 

During the 1798 Rebellion, which commenced in Co. Kildare in the nearby village of Prosperous, the Wolfe family, who were against the United Irishmen, were tipped off by sympathetic rebels of the imminent dangers, and managed to escape to Dublin, and from there to Cheltenham, England. 

In the 1901 census, Blackhall continued to be owned by the Wolfe descendants. Resident on census night was Major Robert Fleetwood Rynd, whose mother, Helena Wolfe, was a granddaughter of Theobald Wolfe, and had married Christopher Rynd of Mountarmstrong. Robert inherited Blackhall in 1870 on the death of his uncle John Wolfe. 

A more comprehensive account of Wolfe Tone’s family connections to this area is described by local historian Seamus Cullen at this link. 

Population Decreased by 50% between 1841 and 1901

The population of 747 in 1841 declined by 15% during the famine decade to 636 by 1851 but steadied for the next 20 years, actually increasing to 667 by 1871. However, the population decreased by 23% in the 1870’s equivalent to 16 people leaving every year for a decade. A further decline of 21% occurred in the 1890’s.

Most of these movements are explained by the rise and fall of the population in Sallins, where the Grand Canal arrived in 1779 and the train station opened in 1846. In 1881, a railway line from Sallins to Tullow, Co. Carlow, commenced and reached Tullow in 1886.

Most common surname in 1901 was Timmons

Timmons was the most common surname in the Bodenstown Electoral Division with 11 residents, followed by Healy and Fleming with 10 each, then Ennis, McGuire, McCreevy and Hill with 9 each. The Slevin family, associated with mills in Clane were present with 8 residents on Census night.