The officials onboard the First Fleet who founded the penal colony of New South Wales in 1788 brought anti-Catholic views with them, which laid the foundation for sectarian divides thanks to the Irishmen and women who also came on the First Fleet. The settlement was perpetually on high alert in case of risings led by exiled Irish political prisoners – there were rebellions in Ireland in 1798 and 1803 and many involved had been transported to Australia – in the context of war with republican France. No Catholic chaplains were permitted in the colony for its first thirty years.