John Talbot was an Irish landowner, politician and soldier of the seventeenth century. He played an active role in both the War of the Three Kingdoms and the Williamite War in Ireland. He was from Belgard (now South Dublin), and hailed from a long-established Old English family of The Pale. A Roman Catholic, he took part in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequently served in the forces of the Irish Confederates. Because of his later support for Crown forces, particularly during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, he was restored to half his estate when Charles II came to the throne.