PAUL ARNOLD ARCHITECTS

Johnstown Castle as we find it today is the product of repeated building phases commencing in the fifteenth century when the Esmondes, an old Wexford family, first built a castle on the site. Following the mid seventeenth century Cromwellian Wars, the estate and castle were confiscated from the Catholic Esmondes, changing hands a number of times before being acquired in 1692 by John Grogan, a Wexford merchant of English origin. For the majority of the eighteenth century, Johnstown Castle and the Grogans played a discreet but notable role in Co. Wexford society. It was only late in that century that the family rose to any degree of national prominence or notoriety, when Cornelius Grogan was executed for his part in the United Irishmen rebellion in Wexford in 1798. Johnstown for a period was confiscated by the government as a penalty for Cornelius’s misguided association with the rebellion but was eventually returned to the family in 1810. It was after this date that the castle was remodeled, first by John Knox Grogan and subsequently by his son Hamilton Knox Grogan Morgan, taking on its present romantic many-towered form. The architect for the majority of these alterations was Daniel Robertson. Notably, Robertson also had a guiding hand in the design of the gardens surrounding the castle, with its lakes and castellated folly towers. During the latter half of the nineteenth century an important collection of fine trees and plants was assembled and today many of these survive as fine specimen plants. The castle and estate was passed to the Irish State in 1945 by the family with the intention that it would serve as an agricultural college, a role it fulfilled for many years before becoming an agricultural research centre, now operated by Teagasc. An important milestone was the opening in 1975 of the Irish Agricultural Museum, with the aim of collecting together fast-vanishing artifacts relating to agriculture and rural life in Ireland. Today this museum possesses the richest such collection of agricultural machinery and equipment in Ireland together with a notable collection of old country furniture.