Small Sources 37: This document is formally titled a ‘List of the tenants of H.K. Grogan Morgan Esq. who were supplied with turnip seed etc and the quantity given to each’. It lists 32 tenants in 17 townlands in south Wexford, particularly in the civil parishes of Newbawn, Horetown and Kilturk. The year 1846 was the height of the Great Famine, and it would appear that the tenants were being provided with seeds of alternate food crops to the potato, whose failure (due to blight) was the direct cause of the famine. The seeds provided were turnip (otherwise Swede or Rutabaga), mangold or mangel-wurzel, carrot and parsnip. The original document is in the National Library of Ireland (Ms. 11,108) and is among the Papers of the Grogan Morgan estate. In 1846 Hamilton Knox Grogan-Morgan was an extensive land-owner in Wexford, Waterford and Cork. He lived in Johnstown Castle in Wexford, which is now an Agricultural research Centre run by the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority. The Castle and its gardens are open to visitors and also house an agricultural museum as well as the research centre.
