Johanna's ancestors were the Daltons of Kildalton. The following has been excerpted from an article on the history of Piltown and Templeorum by Mary O'Shea1.
The D'Altons, Datons or Daltons, arrived in Britain after the Battle of Hastings (1066). Walter Dalton, who secretly married the daughter of the French King, Louis VII, was the immediate ancestor of the family as established in England and Ireland. Dalton comes from the Scandinavian Dalfton. Following the Norman invasion of 1066, there were communication dif ficulties between Normans who knew no English and Englishmen who were ignorant of French. Each had to learn a little of the other's language. The name Dalfton in Norman French became Dalston in old English, the "f" was substituted by the "s". To overcome the problem in the end, the name Dalton was the replacement and the place name, Dalton-in-Furness became a map entry. Dalton is the name of a townland situated on the coast in North-west England. The name Dalfton was widely used throughout the nearby Cumbria and Westmoreland up to the founding of the market town of Dalton in the 19th century.
Walter Dalton acquired extensive properties in Westmeath under Hugh de Lacy after 1169. He was one of de Lacy's principal barons. Mount Dalton in the barony of Rathconrath was where he built his principal castle. When the Daltons settled in the County of Kilkenny is unclear. According to Carrigan, the name appears in Kilkenny records as early as 1382, the year in which a Walter Dalton and others were appointed Keepers of the Peace in the County. Canon William Healy in his History and Antiquities of County Kilkenny (Kilkenny 1893) thinks that they may have settled in Kilkenny circa 1500s, when a William Dalton settled in the County. In the 1400s a Redmond Dalton was a tenant of the Butler manor of Carrick, living in a townland outside the town, so some branches of the Daltons were in the Suir valley before the 1500s.
The Ormonde Butlers directly ruled over 50,000 plantation acres from the castle at Kilkenny and indirectly exerted great power throughout the County. In 1640 the complex hierarchical territories of the Walsh family, extended right across the South of County Kilkenny. The remaining land in the South was dominated by long established families like Edmund Dalton at Kildalton with 2,179 plantation acres and the Dens of Grenan in Thomastown and of Fiddown.
A branch of the Daltons of Kildalton lived at Jamestown in the Templeorum district, where there stood a castle, church and an Anglo-Norman village on either side of the road opposite Jamestown cross. The Daltons of Kildalton owned the following townlands - Kildalton, Ballynametagh, Jamestown, Dowling, Lickawn village, Tobernabrone, seven acres in Whitechurch, an acre in Fiddown, Ballyinacrony in Owning district, Cloncunny and Killaspick in Mooncoin district.
In 1649 Oliver Cromwell arrived in Ireland, at Dublin on the 15th August. By the late autumn of 1650 Cromwell had attacked all the sea-port towns on the east coast. Next came the blocking of the Limerick - Waterford corridor before going into winter quarters. This was achieved by capturing Carrick-On-Suir which is a central location en route to Limerick and Waterford. Cromwell sent ahead of him on the 17th November a strong force of dragoons led by Commissary - General Reynolds who had been promised Ormonde Castle and Deerpark when the land was divided. Carrick was captured without too much dif ficulty. Colonel John Ponsonby and his brother Henry were with General Reynolds when he came to Carrick.
Colonel John Ponsonby had been a Royalist, in that he had been a supporter of the monarchy in the English Civil War against the Parliamentary forces who aimed to overthrow the monarchy. The Ponsonby home was Haile Hall in Cumberland, they were neighbours of the Daltons. For advancement purposes John Ponsonby changed sides to back Cromwell and the Parliamentary forces when Cromwell appeared to be winning. Ponsonby was a shrewd and ambitious man and a soldier par excellence. He raised an army of one hundred foot soldiers, a quantity of horse soldiers and some of ficers at his own cost to fight the Irish campaign.
Edmund Dalton did forfeit his estate in 1653, and John Ponsonby took over the land. It was renamed Bessborough after Ponsonby’s 2nd wife. According to tradition mainly, Sir John Ponsonby allowed Edmund Dalton and his daughter to live on in the castle for a period with a pension of £40 a year. The Daltons were moved to Jamestown, in the late 1600s, where they became gentlemen farmers and lived in the large Georgian type farmhouse on the narrow road to Kilmanahin from Jamestown. In the 19th century and into the 20th century there were two related families of Dalton living in Jamestown, the second, the last of whom was Richard Dalton, lived in a farmhouse at the end of the lane where Jamestown House stands, the former Georgian residence of James Aylward and later George Morris, gentleman farmer and Justice of the Peace. A cluster of tombstones on the south side of Templeorum churchyard mark the burial place of the Daltons from the 1600s.
In 1935 the Earl of Bessborough relinquished his Irish estates, and they eventually became the current agricultural college.
The estate land has now reverted to its original name of Kildalton.