Joseph Holt (rebel)

Joseph Holt (1756 – 16 May 1826) was a United Irish general and leader of a large guerrilla force which fought against British troops in County Wicklow from June–October 1798. He was exiled to Australia in 1799 where he worked as a farm manager and eventually returned to Ireland in 1814. The most reliable and accredited account of his life in Wicklow and in New South Wales are Peter O'Shaughnessy's ground-breaking publications A RUM STORY and REBELLION IN WICKLOW. These are accessible on web site>peteroshaughnessy.info. See documents REBELLION WICKLOW and RUM STORYa on this site.

Background

Holt was one of six sons of John Holt, a farmer in County Wicklow. The Holt family were Protestant loyalists in Ballydaniel (Ballydonnell) near Redcross who arrived in Ireland as Elizabethan planters.

Holt, upon marrying Hester Long (maternally of the Manning family) in 1782, set himself up as a farmer in the vicinity of Roundwood. He joined the Irish Volunteers in the 1780s and held a number of minor public offices such as an inspector of wool and cloth but became involved in law enforcement as a sub-constable, billet master for the militia and a bounty hunter. Holt was involved in The Battle of Vinegar Hill which was an engagement during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 on 21 June 1798 when over 15,000 British soldiers launched an attack on Vinegar Hill outside Enniscorthy, County Wexford.

1798

General Joseph Holt (1799)

Despite Holt's apparent loyalism, he became a member of the Society of United Irishmen in 1797 and gradually began to attract suspicion until finally in May 1798 his house was burned down by the Fermanagh militia. Holt claimed that this was instigated by the local landlord Thomas Hugo who owed Holt a sum of money. Holt then took to the Wicklow mountains, gradually assuming a position of prominence with the United Irish rebels. Avoiding set-piece battles, Holt led a fierce campaign of raids and ambushes against loyalist military targets in Wicklow, striking at will and reducing government influence in the county to urban strongholds. The defeat of the County Wexford rebels at Vinegar Hill on 21 June saw surviving rebel factions heading towards the Wicklow Mountains to link up with Holt's forces. Emerging to meet them, Holt was given much of the credit for the planning of the ambush and defeat of a pursuing force of 200 British cavalry at Ballyellis on 30 June 1798. However the subsequent midlands campaign to revive the rebellion was a disaster and Holt was lucky to escape with his life back to the safety of the Wicklow Mountains.

Holt rallied the remaining rebels and continued his United Irish guerrilla campaign as before allegedly even solving gunpowder shortages by inventing his own concoction known as 'Holt's Mixture'. Eluding a number of large-scale sweeps into the mountains by the army following the collapse of the rising, Holt together with Rebel Captain Michael Dwyer tied down thousands of troops and his forces were augmented by a steady supply of recruits, a significant proportion of whom were deserters from the militia.

Surrender

At the outbreak of the Rebellion, Richard R. Madden tells us (in The United Irishmen: Their Life and Times) that a breakdown of the religious denomination of the leaders would have revealed that 'Catholic, Protestant and Presbyterian' (sic) were represented in roughly equal numbers. It was not long before most Protestants and Presbyterians had defected, surrendered or gone over to the newly consolidated order of the Orangemen - its nucleus having been the Peep O' Day Boys. Holt would then have found himself in the bizarre and invidious position of being a Protestant who led raids to ransack and burn Protestant houses to the ground, for no other reason than that they belonged to Protestants.

 In his Memoirs, Miles Byrne tells us that suspicion that Holt had become an informer had begun to grow when Holt's wife, Hester, came to stay at the outlaws' retreat in Glenmalure. Another story has it that Michael Dwyer ('The Wicklow Chief’), convinced that Halt was a traitor, spared the lives of Holt and his wife only because he thought their execution would encourage the opinion that the rebels were discriminating against Protestants. There was no love lost between Holt and Dwyer who, with Hackett and Matthew Doyle (See Holt's letter to Doyle in Appendix 4 of A RUM STORY) eventually broke away from Holt's army and led what nowadays might be called a band of guerillas. Dwyer, with several of his comrades who had held out with him in a last-ditch stand, would arrive in Sydney, in the Tellicherry, in February 1806.
 In August 1798, French forces, led by General Humbert would land at Killala Bay, in County Mayo. After some initial successes, they surrendered. Holt must have come to recognise that, by November 1798, not merely was the Cause a lost one but that it had actually been transformed into an alien cause. He, a Protestant, was now expected to lead 'Catholic' attacks on what had now been polarised into an 'Orange' faction. And his own forces now largely comprised robbers and desperadoes, the kind of people whom, as a constable, he might once have arrested. Many a conscientious rebel finds that, as violence begets violence, the original cause is lost sight of and the conduct of the 'revolutionaries' becomes hardly distinguishable from that of criminals. Indeed criminals may be magnetised towards the war and eventually abandon themselves to rape, plunder and atrocity-and to hell with the cause. Holt is too discreet to put it quite that way in his history, although he does refer to his strict distinction between legitimate military objectives and mere rapine, and to occasions when he had to rebuke his men for behaving like robbers. But there must be an element of casuistry in this. Holt, like most military men, must have had the blood of innocent victims on his hands. However, as to that, it is worth quoting the distinguished historian W.E.D. Lecky: 'Holt seems to have done all that was in his power to restrain his men from murder, and some conspicuous acts of clemency and generosity, as well as his great daring and skill, gave him much reputation.'
In the first part of his 'history', Holt tells us that, in early November, his band of men had been reduced to fifty. He advised them to go back to their farms where possible, and announced that he would go his own way and offer to surrender. On what terms? Thereafter some of his account is falsified, or untruthful by omission. Lord Cornwallis, the Lieutenant-Governor, had offered an amnesty to those leaders who would surrender. Some people might argue that those terms were ambiguous but it seems to me that Holt had good reason for believing that the only condition imposed would be that he must go into exile; in effect, that meant to America. It must be said though that, according to Mr Cooke, in a memorandum to Viscount Castlereagh, the only concession offered was that the man surrendering would be spared his life.
 Holt's wife, Hester, had been in touch with Mrs La Touche, the wife of a wealthy banker (his father David La Touche was a member of the Irish Parliament and a member of the Irish Privy Council), and known as 'the widow's and orphan's friend'. The La Touches lived at Belview, in Delgany, only a few miles from the seat of Lord Powerscourt, in Enniskerry. Through Mrs La Touche's mediation, Holt came to Powerscourt. In his account of the interview he had with Lord Powerscourt, Holt would have it that he was treated graciously, and wined and dined by His Lordship, that they might have been more or less on an equal footing as they 'treated' with one another. This seems implausible.The following letter, featured in the Appendixes of  A RUM STORY, had never been published before and reveals how vacillating Holt was about his allegiances after he had surrendered.The  text, written in Holt's own hand, is to be found in The National Library in Dublin:
 
 Wilm Keegan of Behina to forward to Lord Poursort or Lord Monk This is to let the Gentle men know my Intention present and the cause of my being so headstrong The burned my house and substance and in curse I cud not help but turn outto fight for my life I never would only for such useage but im tid [I'm tired] of fighting against the Crown I would manfully faught for it and if my wife was paid about half my loss which is 30 Guineas and the Lord Liftennat signs my pardon I am able & willing to sarve my king and Contry and I know very well how to Do it but as to give myself up and be transported I never will I would suffer to be shot in pieces first for I am not afraid to Die of Either sids [sides] I make no doubt but my plans would be very usefull at any time to my country because I know as much as is necessary in all points pray don't believe that me or any of my men are the peopple that Robs for be god I would put a robber to death in one minute worning let my wife know as soon as possible and if the Contents of this will not be done let us all mind ourselves I wish my Country men Well no more
   

Transportation

Castle Hill rebellion 1804

Holt went out on the Minerva (along with Henry Fulton) and on it met Captain William Cox who had been appointed paymaster of the New South Wales Corps. The ship arrived at Sydney on 11 January 1800, and shortly afterwards Holt agreed to manage Captain Cox's farm. He always claimed in Australia that he was a political exile and not a convict. In September 1800 he was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in a plot against the government, but was soon afterwards released as no evidence could be found against him. He was successful in his management for Cox, and afterwards bought land for himself which eventually yielded him a competence. In 1804 a group of convicts plotted to over throw a garrison at Parramatta and head up the river in order to take a ship and sail back to Ireland and escape but Holt sold out the plan earlier to the Governor and was given a pardon in exchange for his information. In April 1804 he was sent to Norfolk Island and put to hard labour. After he had been there 14 weeks Governor King sent instructions that he should be recalled to New South Wales, but delays occurred and it was not until February 1806 that he arrived at Sydney again.

Peter O’Shaughnessy feels bound to draw attention to the fact that The Holt Fellowship web site favours reliance on the Memoirs of Holt in the much edited, rewritten edition published by Thomas Crofton Croker in 1838. This work is now quite discredited by historians and indeed, not long after its publication, was discredited by Crofton Croker himself. He also draws attention to the need for revision of the following misleading or false information published on the Holt Fellowship web site -: By 2007, Dr Ruan O'Donnell had confirmed that Joseph's Ballydonnell (now Ballydaniel) siblings; John Jnr, Thomas, William, Joshua and Mary; were all involved in the United Irish cause. REVISE: In Rebellion in Wicklow, published nine years earlier, in 1998, Peter O'Shaughnessy had already revealed that two of his brothers, as well as Joseph himself, were enlisted, while Thomas too was probably involved.

It led to the welcome membership extension of free inclusion of their descendants as members of The Holt Family Fellowship from birth. Because of Joseph's mention in his memoirs of William's and Jonathon's active involvement, this possibility had been recognised from the outset by Lionel Fowler and discussed with Sonny & Annie Holt in 1998. REVISE: The discussion was hardly of any account since, in that year, Peter O'Shaughnessy's REBELLION IN WICKLOW had established this.

The centuries of political and religious bias since 1798 have frustrated researchers searching for the truth of past events in Ireland. It has made life difficult for family researchers, such as the late Sean 'Sonny' Holt, as certain historical facts cannot be proven through primary sources. REVISE: What evidence is there for this? Given what seems to me to be the anti-Catholic bias of the writer, I suspect that the writer would like to implicate the Catholic church. Sean and Annie Holt were both Catholics. Did they ever suggest that they had been frustrated by 'religious bias’ emanating from the Catholic hierarchy? I very much doubt it. There has been bias against the recognition of Joseph Holt importance in the Rebellion of 1798 but it has not stemmed from the hierarchy of the RC church but at the ground level from the bias of Wicklow Catholics who tend to favour Michael Dwyer as a more important figure than Holt. This has extended to the curators of the Wicklow Heritage Museum. In the 1990’s Peter O’Shaughnessy took great pains in urging them to redress this. That historians went along with this bias ‘for centuries’ is a foolish remark and the inference that historians connived in a cover-up preposterous. Historians may fairly be taken to task for failing to discover that Crofton Croker’s misleading travesty of Joseph Holt’s life had been hoodwinking them for a hundred and fifty years until Peter O’Shaughnessy’s work was published.

Following his death in 1826, Joseph's memoirs were published in 1838 in two volumes as, Memoirs of Joseph Holt, General of The Irish Rebels, in 1788., under the editorship of T. Crofton Croker. REVISE: At the very least, it is misleading to write of Croker's 'editorship',Peter O'Shaughnessy, having revealed as early as 1988, the extent to which Croker had rewritten Holt's writings and falsified them.

Fascinated by his story, the Australian actor, dramatist, and producer, Peter O'Shaughnessy, used the resources of The Mitchell Library in Sydney to re-edit. REVISE: O'Shaughnessy did not 're-edit' the memoirs, he allowed the reader to read what Holt had written whereas, Croker had edited and rewritten what Holt had written. To the memoirs, O'Shaughnessy added his own prefaces and notes and copies of many documents, including some written by Holt. O'Shaughnessy's researches took him to many other sources, in particular in Wicklow and, especially in Dublin, where he was given access to the Holt papers which at that time, were held in the Birmingham Tower. For three or four weeks he was granted residence at Trinity College, Dublin so as to give him ready access to the college’s library.

 …Joseph's memoirs from the original papers as purchased by it. He discovered political manipulation, several anomalies, omissions and biased interpretations. He corrected as many of these as he was able. REVISE It is a glaring omission, amounting to misrepresentation, to write of several…etc.  and of 'as many as he was able'. Moreover, it is a glaring omission for the writer to waffle on about ‘political manipulation’ and not name the perpetrator, Thomas Crofton Croker,who  was, I think, a Protestant. 

Peter reversed the publishing order of the two volumes by publishing the contents of the second volume first in Australia in 1988 and the first volume second in Ireland in 1998. He titled the first volume A Rum Story. It dealt with Joseph's time spent in Australia and his return journey to Dublin. The second volume dealt with Joseph's birth, life and insurgency time in Ireland and was titled, Rebellion in Wicklow General Joseph Holt's Personal Account of 1798. Unfortunately, Peter's two books also reveal some personal bias and a failure to check the veracity of all his sources. During his current quest to have both books published together as an 'omnibus' edition, he has since acknowledged that his claim that Joseph Holt shot Sir (sic)Thomas Hugo is possibly his major error. REVISE: Thomas Hugo was not a knight.

REVISE: There is no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement ‘reveal some personal bias and a failure to check the veracity of all his sources.

’is possibly his major error’ carries the strong inference that the commentator has found many major errors in O’Shaughnessy’s works and more remain to be discovered. Unless substantiated, the above are probably libelous. O’Shaughnessy has undertaken that, provided they are withdrawn, he will be satisfied with an acknowledgement that the statements have no grounds whatever. REVISE: Although there is, course, nothing libelous in writing of his acknowledgement of his error, the ill-ill of the writer of the Fellowship entry persists in his failure to state that in, REBELLION IN WICKLOW, O’Shaughnessy gives a comprehensive account of the actual relationship with Hugo.

COMMENT: Fathers John and Michael Murphy were excommunicated by Dr John Thomas Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, along with the other insurgency embroiled priests, because of their participation. It was against the Vatican directives. The church feared that their involvement would hazard its position in Ireland even further with its already diminishing Ascendancy power. REVISE: ‘already diminishing Ascendancy power’ is such a gaffe that ‘apologise’ or ‘climb down’ might be the most appropriate redress. In 1793, The British Government gave its full support to the establishment of the Catholic seminary at Maynooth. Henceforward, Catholics and Catholic authorities were progressively empowered. The Catholic Emancipation bill of 1831, granted full rights to Catholic and other religions,

Peter O’Shaughnessy draws attention to the need for revision of the following misleading or false information published on the Holt Fellowship web site -: By 2007, Dr Ruan O'Donnell had confirmed that Joseph's Ballydonnell (now Ballydaniel) siblings; John Jnr, Thomas, William, Joshua and Mary; were all involved in the United Irish cause. REVISE: In Rebellion in Wicklow, published nine years earlier, in 1998, Peter O'Shaughnessy had already revealed that two of his brothers, as well as Joseph himself, were enlisted, while Thomas too was probably involved.

It led to the welcome membership extension of free inclusion of their descendants as members of The Holt Family Fellowship from birth. Because of Joseph's mention in his memoirs of William's and Jonathon's active involvement, this possibility had been recognised from the outset by Lionel Fowler and discussed with Sonny & Annie Holt in 1998. REVISE: The discussion was hardly of any account since, in that year, Peter O'Shaughnessy's REBELLION IN WICKLOW had established this.

The centuries of political and religious bias since 1798 have frustrated researchers searching for the truth of past events in Ireland. It has made life difficult for family researchers, such as the late Sean 'Sonny' Holt, as certain historical facts cannot be proven through primary sources. REVISE: What evidence is there for this? Given what seems to me to be the anti-Catholic bias of the writer, I suspect that the writer would like to implicate the Catholic church. Sean and Annie Holt were both Catholics. Did they ever suggest that they had been frustrated by 'religious bias’ emanating from the Catholic hierarchy? I very much doubt it. There has been bias against the recognition of Joseph Holt importance in the Rebellion of 1798 but it has not stemmed from the hierarchy of the RC church but at the ground level from the bias of Wicklow Catholics who tend to favour Michael Dwyer as a more important figure than Holt. This has extended to the curators of the Wicklow Heritage Museum. In the 1990’s Peter O’Shaughnessy took great pains in urging them to redress this. That historians went along with this bias ‘for centuries’ is a foolish remark and the inference that historians connived in a cover-up preposterous. Historians may fairly be taken to task for failing to discover that Crofton Croker’s misleading travesty of Joseph Holt’s life had been hoodwinking them for a hundred and fifty years until Peter O’Shaughnessy’s work was published.

Following his death in 1826, Joseph's memoirs were published in 1838 in two volumes as, Memoirs of Joseph Holt, General of The Irish Rebels, in 1788., under the editorship of T. Crofton Croker. REVISE: At the very least, it is misleading to write of Croker's 'editorship',Peter O'Shaughnessy, having revealed as early as 1988, the extent to which Croker had rewritten Holt's writings and falsified them.

Fascinated by his story, the Australian actor, dramatist, and producer, Peter O'Shaughnessy, used the resources of The Mitchell Library in Sydney to re-edit. REVISE: O'Shaughnessy did not 're-edit' the memoirs, he allowed the reader to read what Holt had written whereas, Croker had edited and rewritten what Holt had written. To the memoirs, O'Shaughnessy added his own prefaces and notes and copies of many documents, including some written by Holt. O'Shaughnessy's researches took him to many other sources, in particular in Wicklow and, especially in Dublin, where he was given access to the Holt papers which at that time, were held in the Birmingham Tower. For three or four weeks he was granted residence at Trinity College, Dublin so as to give him ready access to the college’s library.

 …Joseph's memoirs from the original papers as purchased by it. He discovered political manipulation, several anomalies, omissions and biased interpretations. He corrected as many of these as he was able. REVISE It is a glaring omission, amounting to misrepresentation, to write of several…etc.  and of 'as many as he was able'. Moreover, it is a glaring omission for the writer to waffle on about ‘political manipulation’ and not name the perpetrator, Thomas Crofton Croker,who  was, I think, a Protestant. 

Peter reversed the publishing order of the two volumes by publishing the contents of the second volume first in Australia in 1988 and the first volume second in Ireland in 1998. He titled the first volume A Rum Story. It dealt with Joseph's time spent in Australia and his return journey to Dublin. The second volume dealt with Joseph's birth, life and insurgency time in Ireland and was titled, Rebellion in Wicklow General Joseph Holt's Personal Account of 1798. Unfortunately, Peter's two books also reveal some personal bias and a failure to check the veracity of all his sources. During his current quest to have both books published together as an 'omnibus' edition, he has since acknowledged that his claim that Joseph Holt shot Sir (sic)Thomas Hugo is possibly his major error. REVISE: Thomas Hugo was not a knight.

REVISE: There is no evidence whatsoever to back up the statement ‘reveal some personal bias and a failure to check the veracity of all his sources.

’is possibly his major error’ carries the strong inference that the commentator has found many major errors in O’Shaughnessy’s works and more remain to be discovered. Unless substantiated, the above are probably libelous. O’Shaughnessy has undertaken that, provided they are withdrawn, he will be satisfied with an acknowledgement that the statements have no grounds whatever. REVISE: Although there is, course, nothing libelous in writing of his acknowledgement of his error, the ill-ill of the writer of the Fellowship entry persists in his failure to state that in, REBELLION IN WICKLOW, O’Shaughnessy gives a comprehensive account of the actual relationship with Hugo.

COMMENT: Fathers John and Michael Murphy were excommunicated by Dr John Thomas Troy, Archbishop of Dublin, along with the other insurgency embroiled priests, because of their participation. It was against the Vatican directives. The church feared that their involvement would hazard its position in Ireland even further with its already diminishing Ascendancy power. REVISE: ‘already diminishing Ascendancy power’ is such a gaffe that ‘apologise’ or ‘climb down’ might be the most appropriate redress. In 1793, The British Government gave its full support to the establishment of the Catholic seminary at Maynooth. Henceforward, Catholics and Catholic authorities were progressively empowered. The Catholic Emancipation bill of 1831, granted full rights to Catholic and other religions,

Pardon

In June 1809 Holt received a free pardon, but as this had been given after the arrest of Governor Bligh, it had to be handed in to the government when Governor Macquarie arrived. Holt, however, was officially pardoned on 1 January 1811 and in December 1812, having sold some of his land and stock, with his wife and younger son took passage to Europe on the Isabella; also on board was Henry Browne Hayes. The ship was wrecked on one of the Falkland Islands, and Holt showed great resolution and ingenuity in making the best of the conditions on the island. He was rescued on 4 April 1813 but did not reach England until 22 February 1814 as he went via the United States. Holt retired to Ireland where he lived for the rest of his life, but regretted he had left Australia. He died at Kingstown now Dún Laoghaire near Dublin on 16 May 1826 and is buried in Carrickbrennan Churchyard at Monkstown. He was a man of great courage and force of character, a good leader of men.(see Bolton) His elder son Joshua Holt married and remained in New South Wales, and the younger son Joseph Harrison Holt also went there via the United States after his father's 1826 death.

References

• G. C. Bolton, 'Holt, Joseph (1756 - 1826)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 1, MUP, 1966, pp 550–551. Retrieved 1 August 2009
• Serle, Percival (1949). "Holt, Joseph". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogHi-Hu.html#holt1. 
• Holt Family Fellowship

Further reading

A Rum Story - The adventures of Joseph Holt - thirteen years in New South Wales. Edited by Peter O'Shaughnessy. Kangaroo Press, 1988*Rebellion in Wicklow: General Joseph Holt's personal account of 1798. Edited by Peter O' Shaughnessy. Four Courts Press, Dublin 1998.

• The Year of Liberty: the great Irish rebellion of 1798. Thomas Pakenham. Granada 1982.
• 'Keeping up the flame' General Joseph Holt. Ruan O' Donnell. History Ireland. Vol. 6. No. 2. 1998.