I have found the McCafrey diaries very interesting especially the reference to Prosper DeMestre of Terara. Also the death notice of Rosetta Maurant and the reference to her husband F. Maurant his arrival on the ship Minerva and the reference to his shipmates, William Cox, Joseph Holt and others who were sentenced to banishment for their part in the 1898 Rebellion in Ireland. Between 1800 and 1806 eight ships arrived in Port Jackson carrying a significant number of these Irish politica offenders. Many of them were sent without the benefit of a proper trial. A large number of them arrived without documentation and as a result were not granted pardons for up to 18years after they were transorted. Not all of those transported had committed crimes during the Rebellion but had been named as United Irishmen by other men who had been flogged and tortured. Re Joseph Holt - Joseph Holt was the son of John Holt a farmer in the hills of County Wicklow. Holt a Protestant had no sympathy with the rebellion until a neighbor with whom he had argued denounced him as a rebel and took a detatchment of yeomanry to his house while he was absent and burnt it down. Holt then joined the rebels and for more than six moths conducted successful guerilla campaigns only 30 miles from Dublin. He later surrendered and was sentenced to transportation to Nsw. Holt sailed on the Minerva in 1799 and reached Nsw in January, 1801 Soon after his arrival he became the manager of William Cox's Brush farm at Dundas and also his Canterbury farm. He later owned farmland of his own. He was falsely accused of participating in theCastle Hill uprising and he was committed to prison and was exiled to Norfolk Island. In 1805 he was permitted to return to Sydney. After receiving his pardon in 1811 he returned to Ireland where he remained regretting that he had left Australia. He died in 1826. He was survived by two sons the eldest who had stayed in NSW. His younger son returned to Nsw after his father's death. The famous Wicklow rebel Michael Dwyer gave himself up after 7 years of hiding in the Wicklow Hills and after transportation became the police seargent at Liverpool. Both these men and other rebels have descendants on the south east coast of Nsw. I have just returned from visiting Ireland with SAG where we attended 1798 Rebellion celebrations throughout the country along with a number of descendants of Joseph Holt and other rebellion convicts. Regards to all Helen Ruttley