Hello Christina I am the Drogheda Volunteer and have looked over the query and can find no relevant information but am seeking some more information if you have it, firstly do you know the religion of the family at the time. The link Roger posted to the census is I think for the orphanage and the Joseph is aged 7and religion RC, so born circa late 1893 or early 1894, the census was I think done in April. I can find only 4 Boltons registered in Dundalk circa this period, 1892 to 1896, two female and two male and one died young, the other male is named Francis so unless he was Christened Francis Joseph and called Joseph he is not correct.
I also searched Ireland for the parents deaths of the young chap in the orphanage and the most likely is a Samuel and Susan who died in India, places called Bellary and Roorkee, the deaths are registered in Ireland. There is no sign of Joseph in the 1911 census but there is an 18 year old Joseph in Hampshire, in a military establishment I think born in Dublin but as the census was probably filled out by a clerk he may not be too accurate on birthplace or maybe he joined up in Dublin.
The workhouse in Dundalk was on the Ardee Road which may be in Haggardstown, different spelling than yours. The catholic registers for Haggardstown do not appear to be available for the year in question on http://registers.nli.ie/ They are not an easy read.
Irish civil records commenced in 1864 so the births should be registered in the General Registry Office. It strikes me there is no way the lady who died in India had 17 children, think she was only 32. THe subscription sites I checked did not have that number of Boltons born in Louth. I see on this site http://www.jbhall.freeservers.com/index.html there was a Clive Bolton, a Colonel who was from Dundalk and served in the 1st World War. Also other Bolton hits but not as many as you think as there is a Bolton Square in Drogheda around the corner from the orphanage as it turns out, oddly also when we moved here 35 years ago we were assigned the orphanage telephone number to our house and were getting phone calls for about 20 years after.
I will do some more searching but if you can give any more detail it would assist.
Regards
Pat