Rapparees or raparees (from the Irish ''ropairí'', plural of ''ropaire'', whose primary meaning is "thruster, stabber," and by extension a wielder of the half-pike or pike), were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Jacobite side during the 1690s

Williamite war in Ireland The Williamite War in Ireland (1688–1691; ga, Cogadh an Dá Rí, "war of the two kings"), was a conflict between Jacobite supporters of deposed monarch James II and Williamite supporters of his successor, William III. It is also called th ...

. Subsequently, the name was also given to bandits and highwaymen in Ireland – many former guerrillas having turned to crime after the war ended. They were in many cases outlawed members of the

Gaelic nobility of Ireland This article concerns the Gaelic nobility of Ireland from ancient to modern times. It only partly overlaps with Chiefs of the Name because it excludes Scotland and other discussion. It is one of three groups of Irish nobility, the others bein ...

and still held to the code of conduct of the traditional chiefs of the

Irish clan Irish clans are traditional kinship groups sharing a common surname and heritage and existing in a lineage-based society, originating prior to the 17th century. A clan (or ''fine'' in Irish) included the chief and his patrilineal relatives; howe ...

s. They share many similarities with the hajduks of Eastern Europe.

Wood kerne and Tories

There was a long tradition of

guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run ta ...

in Ireland before the 1690s. Irish irregulars in the 16th century were known as ''ceithearnaigh choille'', "wood-kerne", a reference to native Irish foot-soldiers called ''ceithearnaigh'', or "kerne". In the

Irish Confederate Wars The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War (from ga, Cogadh na hAon-déag mBliana), took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in the kin ...

of the 1640s and 50s, irregular fighters on the

Irish Confederate The Irish Confederation was an Irish nationalist independence movement, established on 13 January 1847 by members of the Young Ireland movement who had seceded from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association. Historian T. W. Moody described it as "th ...

side were known as "tories", from the Irish word ''tóraidhe'' (modern ''tóraí'') meaning "pursuer". From 1650 to 1653, during the

Cromwellian conquest of Ireland The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland or Cromwellian war in Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell invaded Ireland w ...

, the tories caused the Parliamentarian forces led by

Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...

a great deal of trouble, attacking vulnerable garrisons, tax-collectors and supply columns and then melting away when faced with detachments of Parliamentarian troops.

Henry Ireton Henry Ireton ((baptised) 3 November 1611 – 26 November 1651) was an English general in the Parliamentarian army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and the son-in-law of Oliver Cromwell. He died of disease outside Limerick in November 16 ...

first led a sweep of

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by ...

and the south

midlands The Midlands (also referred to as Central England) are a part of England that broadly correspond to the Kingdom of Mercia of the Early Middle Ages, bordered by Wales, Northern England and Southern England. The Midlands were important in the In ...

in September–October 1650 to try to clear it of tory guerrillas. During the 1650–51 winter, the Parliamentarian commander John Hewson led punitive columns into the midlands and the Wicklow mountains to try and root out the guerilla bands. Although they captured a number of small castles and killed several hundred guerrillas, they were not able to stop the guerilla attacks. In Wicklow especially, Hewson destroyed all stocks of food he found in order to starve the guerrillas into submission. The guerrillas were eventually defeated in part by ordering all civilians from areas where they operated to leave their habitations, and then designating these regions (in areas which included Wicklow and much of the south of Ireland) as what would now be termed

free-fire zone A freedom zone to fire in U.S. military parlance is a fire control measure, used for coordination between adjacent combat units. The definition used in the Vietnam War by U.S. troops may be found in field manual FM 6-20: :A specific designated ...

s, where anyone found still residing in them would then be allowed to be "taken slain and destroyed as enemies and their cattle and goods shall be taken or spoiled as the goods of enemies" by Parliamentarian soldiers. Hewson also ordered the expulsion of

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

townsmen from

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

, for fear they were aiding the guerillas in the countryside. Other

counterinsurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionari ...

tactics included selling those captured as indentured servants and finally publishing surrender terms allowing guerillas to leave the country to enter military service in France and Spain. The last organised bands of tories surrendered in 1653 when many of them left Ireland to serve in foreign armies. After the war, many tories continued their activities, "a spasmodic and disconnected opposition to the new regime", in part as Catholic partisans, in part as ordinary criminals who "brought misery to friend and foe alike". The ranks of tories remained filled throughout the post-war period by displaced Irish Catholics whose land and property were confiscated in the

Cromwellian Settlement The Act for the Setling of Ireland imposed penalties including death and land confiscation against Irish civilians and combatants after the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent unrest. British historian John Morrill wrote that the Act and a ...

. Their situation is reflected in this stanza from a contemporary song from

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...

, " Éamonn an Chnoic": (''Long have I been out in snow and frost, having no one that I know, my plough-team still unyoked, the fallow unploughed, and with those things lost to me; I regret not having friends who would take me in at morning or night, and that I must go eastwards over the sea, for there I have no relations.'')

Williamite War

In the 1690s, during the

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...

, the label "

tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

" was insultingly given to the English supporters of James II, to associate them with the Irish rebels and bandits of a generation earlier. In Ireland, Irish Catholics supported James – becoming known as

Jacobites Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometimes ...

. Under

Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell PC (c. 1630 – 14 August 1691) was an Irish politician, courtier and soldier. Talbot's early career was spent as a cavalryman in the Irish Confederate Wars. Following a period on the Continent, he joined ...

, each locality had to raise a regiment to support the Jacobite cause. Most did so, but James and his French backers did not have the resources to arm and pay them all, so many of them were disbanded. It was from these bands that most of the Rapparees were organised. They armed themselves with whatever they could find or take from Protestant civilians, including

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually di ...

s, long knives (''sceana'' or "skiens") and half-pikes. The rapparees got their name from this last weapon – a pike about 6 feet (2 m) long, cut down from the standard military pike which was up to 16 feet (5 m) long. Throughout the campaign, the rapparees caused major logistical problems to the Williamite army, raiding their rear areas and killing their soldiers and supporters. Many rapparee bands developed a bad reputation among the general civilian population, including among Catholics, for robbing indiscriminately. George Warter Story, a chaplain with a Williamite regiment, relates that the rapparees hid their weapons in bogs when Williamite troops were in the area and melted into the civilian population, only to re-arm and reappear when the troops were gone. The rapparees were a considerable help to the Jacobite war effort, tying down thousands of Williamite troops who had to protect supply depots and columns. The famous rapparees "

Galloping Hogan Michael "Galloping" Hogan was an Irish rapparee or brigand following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. He was born in the parish of Doon, at the foot of the Slieve Phelim hills in East Limerick, and was possibly a relatively wealthy landowner ...

" and Éamonn an Chnoic are said to have guided Sir Patrick Sarsfield's cavalry raid that destroyed the Williamite siege train at the siege of Limerick in 1690.

Fiction

Rapparees have been mentioned in fiction, for example in Thomas Flanagan's '' Year of the French'': "Joshua's son Jonathan, who in 1690 had raised his company to serve King William at the Boyne and Aughrim and Limerick, rode home to Mount Pleasant and defended it for five years against the sporadic sallies of the rapparees, the swordsmen, masterless now, of the defeated James Stuart". There is a folk song (of 19th century origin - see the reference to "Peelers" Royal Irish Constabulary), devoted to the Rapparee:

References

Notes Bibliography * * * * {{Refend 17th century in Ireland Williamite War in Ireland Guerrilla wars Irish outlaws Irish Jacobites

Wood kerne and Tories

Williamite War

Fiction

See also

References