The Monagahan man, who plays his club rugby with Welsh side Ospreys, is the son of Waterford native Paul Bowe, a member of the well-known Bilberry farming and meat victualling family.
As a second row, Bowe snr won a Leinster Schools Cup with Newbridge College in 1970 and went on to play for Leinster Schools before studying engineering at UCD and later working in Silver Hills. (He now has his own company, BD Foods.)
Tommy’s sister, Hannah, is an Ireland hockey international, a talent she inherited from mum Ann, a physio and former athlete from Kildare. Proud of his Munster blood, Tommy says his father “wouldn’t seem competitive but put him onto a pitch and he was a different animal” – though “I definitely didn’t get my speed from my dad,” he smiles.
