John Ponsonby (colonel)
John Ponsonby (1608–1678) was a soldier, landowner and politician in Ireland during and after the Cromwellian wars. He served as a colonel in Oliver Cromwell’s army, sat in Parliament for two Irish counties, and was granted extensive lands in several counties.
He was born in 1608 at Haugh-Heale, near Whitehaven, Cumberland, the son of Dorothy Sands and Henry Ponsonby. In 1641 he was listed as the proprietor of lands at Iverk, Kilkenny, but he did not live there. He arrived at Drogheda in 1641 as captain of 75 men and joined Sir Henry Tichborne’s regiment in 1642. In 1645 he and others plotted to seize Drogheda and hand it to the Scots, but the plot failed and he was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin. The English Parliament arranged his release. He then returned to England and commanded a cavalry regiment of the northern army. On 15 June 1647 he raised a regiment of horse for the English Commonwealth; the regiment went to Ireland a few months later and in 1649 joined Charles Coote’s regiment under Cromwell. Ponsonby’s younger brother Henry was also a soldier.
Cromwell aimed to defeat the Catholic Confederacy and the Royalists. Ponsonby became governor of Dundalk in 1649 and impressed Cromwell with his plan to capture Carrick in November that year. He was promoted from major to colonel during the campaign.
After the war, land was redistributed as payment to soldiers. Ponsonby was made a commissioner to collect depositions from Protestants about “murders” by the Irish. He served as sheriff of Wicklow and Kildare between 1654 and 1655. When Charles II was restored in 1660, Ponsonby was appointed a commissioner to help implement the king’s settlement of Ireland. He was MP for Kilkenny from 1661 to 1666, was knighted, and in 1667 became MP for Tipperary as Sir John Ponsonby of Kidalton.
In 1662 he received a pardon for past treasons and rebellions, which also applied to his younger brother. He was granted land as part of the settlement, including properties in Dublin, two townlands in Limerick, sixteen in Donegal and forty-six in Kilkenny, notably the Kidalton Estate with the castle (later renamed Bessborough House in honor of his second wife Elizabeth “Bess” Folliott). Some claims were disputed, and parts of his estate were affected when other families were restored. He also had to surrender some land when the Butler family was restored.
Ponsonby and Elizabeth (his second wife, who died earlier or later) had three children: Elizabeth, Henry and William, with William becoming the first Ponsonby to hold an earldom. John Ponsonby died in 1678, aged 60, and was buried at the church in Fiddown.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:16 (CET).