Irish Partisans: Rapparees of the Williamite Wars, 1689- 1691

Ruairi Gallagher

opposing factions of their ene- mies.1

This article will, nevertheless, analyse the Irish partisans that were active throughout the Williamite Wars in Ireland: the Rap- parees. They differed somewhat from their Tory social-bandit predecessors, insofar as Rappareeism was more politicised and was recognised as a political force under the articles of the Treaty of Limerick signed in 1691. What the Rapparees and the To- Introduction ries had in common, however, is that they To better understand this article, one should read both provided Ireland with fighting-men and the previous piece I wrote in the Irish Marxist Re- fighting-leaders throughout the upheavals of view 9 (IMR 9) on Irish Tory social-bandits during the seventeenth century. Despite this, the the Cromwellian and Restoration periods of seven- Rapparees, like the Tories, lacked a revolu- teenth century Ireland. tionary political ideology that could have el- evated the insurgency above the out-dated Still relevant as ever, Irish Socialist Re- politics of feudalism. Perhaps if Socialism publican and Marxist, James Connolly, first or Irish Republicanism had been discovered wrote about the Jacobite period in his fa- a century earlier, the subject Irish people mous Labour in Irish History. Connolly with could have then rejected feudalism in its his eĺan and his renowned style of writing entirety and liberated itself from the dead- regarded it as one of the greatest tragedies weight of colonialism and foreign rule? Of of Irish history that Irish men and women, course it’s counter-factual history, but it’s a who fought in opposing armies, would die in question well worth asking. order to seat a foreign King on the throne: Origins and political signifi- It is equally beyond all question that the whole struggle was cance of the Rapparees no earthly concern of theirs; Ah, way out on the moors where the wind shrieks that King James was one of and howls, the most worthless representa- Sure, he’ll find his lone home there amongst the wild fowl. tives of a race that ever sat No one there to welcome, no comrade has he. upon the throne...The war be- Ah, God help the poor outlaw, the wild rapparee. tween William and James offered a splendid opportunity to the subject people of Ireland to make He has robbed many rich of their gold and their a bid for freedom while the forces crown. of their oppressors were rent in He has outrode the soldiers who haunted him down. civil war. The opportunity was Alas, he has boasted, they’ll never take me, cast aside, and the subject peo- Not a swordsman will capture the wild rapparee.2 ple took sides on behalf of the - Popular folk song devoted to the Rapparee 1James Connolly, Labour in Irish History, (Dublin, 1973), pp. 6-7. 2Henry Glassie, Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Folklore and History of an Ulster Community, (Dublin, 1982), p. 110.

72 Rapparees (derived from the Irish word laws that solely robbed and plundered the rapaire, meaning half-pike or pike wielding country ‘under pretence of suppressing the person), were Irish partisans that fought rebellious Protestants’.5 This disparagement alongside the Jacobites armies against the is further illustrated by King William of Or- Williamite forces during the Irish Williamite ange, who dismissed the Rapparees as ‘Irish Wars (1689-1691). Rappareeism in Ire- Papists, and other lewd and vagrant persons land originated, in 1687, during a period disaffected to the government, [which] are which would lead to the remodelling and observed to wander up and down, to the ter- ‘Catholization’ of the Irish army by Richard ror of his Majesty’s subjects’.6 In contrast, Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell; and provided Irish historian Eámonn OĆiardha has ar- the opportunity for former vagrants or To- gued that contemporary leaders of the polit- ries to join the Jacobite armies under King ical divide in Ireland, such as the French Ja- James II as irregulars or commissioned of- cobite, General D’Avaux, did view the Rap- ficers.3 Since the landing of the Williamite parees as politicised ‘Jacobite partisans’.7 Duke of Schomberg in Ireland, on 13 Au- gust 1689, the Jacobites were gradually losing the conflict. Guerrilla war soon en- The Rapparees: a fighting par- sued and King James II encouraged Rap- tisan force and the Bog of Allen paree incursions into enemy territories: the In view of this, the Rapparees success- crowns support helped to institutionalise fully conducted a war of attrition against Rappareeism. However, English contem- Williamite forces, notably making it difficult poraries of the Williamite Wars tried in for Williamites, under the command of the earnest to depoliticise the Rapparees, dis- Duke of Schomberg, to leave camp for fear of missing them as outlaws that were hand-in- being ambushed or killed. As the Williamite glove with the enemy in order to indirectly historian, George Story further explained; suppress Protestant settlers. Pro-Williamite historian, George Story, also depoliticised the Rapparees, linking them with Italian For they straggled abroad and type banditry then prevalent throughout plundered those few people who the continent. This was not, in fact, a were left, and some of them were valid comparison as the banditry that en- murdered by the Rapparees, a gulfed Italy was regarded as non-political word which we were strangers to (Italy was not a unitary state until the nine- ‘till this time ... such of the Irish teenth century); whereas Ireland was, and as are not in the army but the the Williamite Wars strengthened the eth- country people, armed in a hos- nic and religious elements of Rappareeism.4 tile manner with half-pikes and Despite this, Williamite authorities contin- skeans, and some with sythes, or 8 ued to harangue and depoliticise the Rappa- musquets. rees. Operating in small cells and being con- John Stevens, an English Jacobite, also cealable from the rest of the Irish popula- downplayed the political significance of the tion would be an important factor for the Rapparees and regarded themas mere out- military effectiveness of the Rapparees; and 3 James Anthony Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, (3 vols, New York, 1888), p. 178. 4Eámonn OĆiardha, ‘Woodkerne, tories and rapparees in Ulster and north Connacht in the seventeenth century’ (M.A thesis, University College, Dublin, 1991) , p. 185. 5 Robert H. Murray (ed), The Journal of John Stevens, (Oxford, 1912), pp. 61-62. 6Warrant Book, 6th May Whitehall (Cal. S.P. Dom., 1689-1690, p. 92). 7Eámonn OĆiardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685-1766: A fatal attachment, (Dublin, 2004), p. 71. 8George Warter Story, A true and impartial history, 9th September, 1689, p. 16. 9Harman Murtagh. ‘The War in Ireland 1689-91’, in W.A. Maguire (ed), Kings in Conflict: The Revo- lutionary War in Ireland and its Aftermath 1689-1750, (Belfast, 1990), p. 82.

73 this can be attributed to the Williamite fail- Jacobite armies also swelled the ranks of ure to quickly suppress them.9 Historian, G. the Rapparees. Famous Rapparees, such as Simms, attributed the effectiveness of the ‘White Sergeant’, M’Cabe, Cavanagh, and Rapparees to their extensive knowledge of ‘Galloping Hogan’, all at one point or an- the local terrain and the compliance of the other operated near the Bog of Allen.13 Dur- local Catholic population.10 This was evi- ing September 1690, George Story explained dent during the Duke of Schomberg’s march the strategic importance of the Bog of Allen to the Boyne: Rapparees had constantly for the Rapparees; harassed Williamite armies before the Bat- The Rapparees by this time were tle of the Boyne in July 1690. As with got to the end of the Bog of all successful partisan movements, the el- Allen, about twelve miles from ement of surprise provided the Rapparees Dublin (this Bog is the largest with effective camouflage, as they could sub- in Ireland; for it reaches through sequently melt into the Irish populace with- a great part of the country, from out being detected by the Williamite author- hence as far as Athlone, and is at ities. George Story summed up the Rappa- least forty miles in length having rees modus operandi; several islands full of woods in When the Rapparees have no the midst of it): These robbed mind to show themselves upon and plundered the country all the bogs they commonly sink about; for they had an island on down between two or three lit- this end of the Bog which they 14 tle hills, grown over with long fortified. grass, so that you may as soon Reference to fortifications provides ev- find a hare as one of them: they idence that the Bog of Allen had been conceal their arms ... you may a key strategic zone for the Rapparees search till you are weary before which further proves that they cannot sim- you find one gun: but when ply be regarded as bandits; but instead they have a mind to do mis- should be viewed as well organised parti- chief, they can all be ready in sans. The south Ulster border was another an hour’s warning, for everyone area that continued to be troublesome to the knows where to go to and fetch Williamite forces, and, during May 1690, a his own arms, though you do detachment of Rapparees ‘came over the bog 11 not. near Newry and carried away horses, cows, and men’ - causing Williamite armies a great Detachments of Rapparees disrupted deal of trouble.15 George Story, again, com- Williamite communications by successfully mented on the remoteness of the south Ul- raiding small garrisons, stealing horses, in- ster area and the menace it had been to the tercepting mail and couriers, together with English authorities throughout the golden- destroying bridges; yet these operations did age of Toryism during the Restoration pe- not affect the outcome of the Battle of the riod; Boyne.12 Following the ignominious Jaco- bite defeat at the Boyne - which precipitated The country between Newry and the cowardly flight of James II from Ireland Dundalk, is one of the wildest - Rapparee forces retreated to the Bog of places of all Ireland, being the Allen (in the centre of Ireland); and many hunt some years ago, of the fa- of the de-mobbed soldiers from the defeated mous Tory, Redmond O’Hanlon, 10J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, 1685-91, (new ed., Dublin, 2000), p. 198. 11George Warter Story, A true and impartial history, December, 1690, pp. 152-153. 12Wurtemberg to Christian V, Waterford, 2nd May 1691, in K. Danaher and J.G. Simms (eds). The Danish Force in Ireland 1690-1691, (Dublin, 1962), p. 110 13John J. Marshall, Irish Tories, Rapparees and Robbers, (Dungannon, 1927), pp. 50-51. 14George Warter Story, A true and impartial history, December, 1690, p. 156. 15News Letter. 20th May 1690 (Cal. S.P. Dom., 1690-1691, p. 14).

74 whose Ancestors were wont to Williamite forces hardened attitudes among brag that they were Standard- the wider Catholic community; and the Bearers in times of old, to the Williamite forces soon realized that it was Kings of Ulster.16 extremely difficult to distinguish between Rapparees or ordinary Catholic civilians. On a number of occasions the Williamite Formation of militias and sec- army and Protestant militias did not make tarian conflict any distinction between Rapparee, civilians or Jacobite soldiers. Williamite contempo- Despite early successes, contemporaries such raries admitted that large numbers of inno- as French General, D’Avaux, commented on cent civilians had been killed as suspected the ever-increasing destitution of Jacobite Rapparees. This would suggest, as John soldiers as the war prolonged: they were Childs has explained, that one can compare forced to continuously plunder and pillage in the conflict in Ireland to similar ‘total wars’ order to survive. Such actions enabled the that had been fought in contemporary Eu- Williamites to further disparage the Rappa- rope. rees as common bandits. Williamite suppression, however, contributed to the popular support given by the general public to European partisans and the the Rapparees: Williamite forces unmerci- Irish Rapparees fully pillaged the countryside and attacked Catholics at every given opportunity. Cou- These total wars, which Childs refers to, in- pled with this, Williamite soldiers maltreat- cluded the Balkans during the Austrian of- ment of the natives, in which they ‘begun fensives after 1683; the French invasions of to strip and rob most of the Irish ... made Catalonia in 1689 and 1697; and the French it natural for them [Catholics], after this, to invasion of Savoy-Piedmont from 1690 un- turn Rapparee, and do us all the mischief til 1696. Similar religiously inspired con- they could’.17 Williamite repression is fur- flicts, like the Williamite Wars, were be- ther highlighted by the policy of setting-up ing fought in Poland, from 1656 onwards, local Protestant militias, during the winter against invading Protestant Swedes.20 Un- of 1690-1691, in an attempt to combat the doubtedly, the Irish Rapparees also greatly Rapparees, which further polarised sectarian resembled the Danish Snapphane partisans feeling among Irish Catholics and Protes- who fought alongside the Danish regular tants.18 Not surprisingly, this greatly added armies against the Swedes during the Sca- to the Catholic populace’s sense of injus- nian Wars.21 These resilient Scanian peas- tice as these Protestant militias were noted ants, who joined the ranks of Snapphane, as extremely undisciplined and bitterly sec- carried out a guerrilla war from between tarian. It has been previously argued that 1657-1658 and from 1674-1679 against the the militia-men proved unreliable when de- Swedish occupation of the province of Sca- ployed with regular forces, but they were ef- nia. fective in providing county defence and secu- One can also perhaps compare the Rap- rity when the Williamite forces were in the parees to the Haiduks, the resistance fighters field of battle.19 from Eastern-Europe. Haiduks, as in Rus- Each indiscriminate or coercive mea- sia or Hungary, could become attached to sure perpetuated by the militias or the the nobility (similar to the Rapparees being 16George Warter Story, A true and impartial history, 15th September, p. 15. 17Ibid, p. 138. 18Richard Doherty, The Williamite War in Ireland 1688-1691, (Dublin, 1998), p. 156. 19 John Childs, The Williamite Wars 1688-1691, (London, 2007), p. 282. 20 John Childs. ‘The laws of war in seventeenth-century Europe and their application during the Jaco- bite War in Ireland, 1688-91’, in David Edwards, Padraig´ Lenihan & Clodagh Tait (eds), Age of Atrocity: Violence and political conflict in early modern Ireland, (Dublin, 2007), pp. 298-299. 21Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721, (Lon- don, 2000), p. 36.

75 subsidiary to King James II or the House erated with units composed of ‘Creaghts’, of Stuart); and were also described as ban- which had been accompanied by women, dits or highwaymen who robbed not only children and herds of cattle. This type of the Ottoman Turkish occupation, but the military formation was first pioneered by native population or merchants on the high- Owen Roe O’Neill’s usage of Creaghts earlier ways.22 Comparisons, too, can be made with in the seventeenth century during the Irish the Cossacks. Cossack detachments had Cromwellian Wars. consisted of irregular or freebooting soldiers French Jacobite General, D’Avaux, re- from Eastern-Europe and notably signed the mained impressed with the Creaghts in Ul- Treaty of Pereyaslav which would precipi- ster; but in reality, O’Donnell offered to- tate the outbreak of the Russo-Polish War ken resistance to the Williamite armies, and or Thirteen Years War (1654-1667).23 In subsequently played no part at the Battle Ireland, similar measures of suppression as of Aughrim, despite considering ambushing those enforced against the partisans in Eu- General Ginckel and his Williamite army on rope had been implemented: the Danish its move towards the Jacobite garrison at Duke of Württemberg compared the Protes- Sligo. However, instead of taking to the tant militia in Ireland to a similar Swedish field, O’Donnell surrendered and accepted militia which had suppressed the Danish favourable terms from the Williamite lead- populace and Snapphane partisans.24 As ership; and this enabled the Williamites with most wars, fully distinguishing between to successfully continue their advance into regular troops, irregular forces, or civilians Sligo. O’Donnell’s volte-face, after which had been an unavoidable problem for both he would eventually join ranks with the sides in the conflict. Williamites, has later been attributed to his personal hatred for Richard Talbot, Earl of 25 Hugh Balldearg O’Donnell and Tyrconnell. his infamous volte-face Suppression of Jacobite sup- One such irregular to emerge in Ireland porters and Williamite victory during the Williamite conflict was the former Spanish soldier and freebooter Hugh With the Jacobite armies greatly weakened Balldearg (‘red spot’) O’Donnell. Hugh and almost defeated, Williamite armies un- O’Donnell was of Spanish-Irish descent and der the command of General Ginckel contin- earned distinction by serving in the Span- ued to encourage the widespread persecution ish armies on the continent. O’Donnell had of the Catholic population, regarding them been recognised by the Spanish as the true as being in daily contact with Rapparees by Earl of Tyrconnell; much to the displeasure providing intelligence and logistical support. of Richard Talbot, then current Earl of Tyr- Repression of Catholic priests was also gov- connell. Both O’Donnell and Richard Tal- ernment policy in order to bring priests that bot had a personal vendetta with each other; were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause into and claimed to be the rightful heir to the ti- line. Without doubt, ruthless suppression tle of Tyrconnell. Following the fall of the by the Williamite authorities greatly min- Jacobite garrison at Galway, the Jacobite imised the influence of the Catholic Church. armies were greatly weakened and thereafter Also, in areas where the Rapparees were operated in north Connaught and Munster, deemed to be numerous, proclamations were with a substantial presence in Sligo. It issued by the Lord Justices ‘requiring all Pa- was in north Connaught that O’Donnell op- pists to remain in their respective Parishes, 22Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits, (new ed., Great Britain, 2000), pp. 78-79. 23Robert I. Frost, The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558-1721, (Lon- don, 2000), p. 164. 24Wurtemberg to Christian V, Dublin, 26th Dec. 1691, in K. Danaher and J.G. Simms (eds), The Danish Force in Ireland 1690-1691, (Dublin, 1962), p. 139. 25Richard Doherty, The Williamite War in Ireland 1688-1691, (Dublin, 1998), p. 186. 26George Warter Story, An impartial history of the war in Ireland, September, 1689, p. 138.

76 at least not to go three miles farther, and & French, the Dutch & English, only then to a market’.26 Robert H. Mur- or by the Irish Tories: only the ray, however, has stressed that ambitious wounds of a friend are more un- Protestants that envisaged climbing the so- kind, cutting & deadly. From cial ladder encouraged the seizing or arrest- this intolerable and almost li- ing of Catholic priests in order to take ‘re- censed waste and destruction the venge for past injuries, or to gain money or country must rationally expect a lands’.27 Jacobite officials, too, were not ex- famine and mortality.30 empt; Williamites regarded them as no dif- ferent from the Rapparees. Colonel William Wolseley, noted that his men had tracked The Treaty of Limerick down and killed between 80 or 100 Tories and had taken prisoner former sheriffs of Despite the overall persecution of the King James: Andrew Tuite, James Ledg- Catholic populace and suppression of many wich and Redmond Mullady. Wolseley re- Rapparees, coupled with major defeats at garded them as Tories and Highwaymen; the Boyne, Aughrim, Galway and Sligo, the Jacobite cause continued to hold out against They are no soldiers, nor have the jaws of defeat until the end of 1691. any commission for what they Gradually, the war in Ireland was moving do, and therefore I conceive are toward on an outright military victory for not to be treated other ways the Williamite armies: the presence of an than Toryes and highwaymen; English fleet in the Shannon estuary greatly and therefore I have a great mind reduced the opportunity of fleeing Jacobites to hang them, if his majesty will reaching France to regroup, and effectively either give orders for it, or say decided the conflict. In view of this, Patrick nothing but leave me to myself, Sarsfield and other Jacobite generals surren- for I am well assured that an dered and accepted the terms of the Treaty Irishman is to be taught his duty of Limerick.31 Under the military articles only by the rod.28 of this treaty, the Jacobite army were to be provided with ships to be transported Wolseley, in fact, had been forced to ad- from Ireland and ordered not to return; mit that Andrew Tuite’s father and about thereafter, the exiles joined various armies 1000 Rapparees under the command of Ger- in Europe (famously known as the Wild ald Nugent - one-time Sheriff for King James Geese). More importantly, the military ar- - had not yet been apprehended and were ticles of the Treaty of Limerick applied to successfully holding out at a garrison in the Rapparees32; and provided further proof Mullingar.29 Despite this, waves of sup- that the Rapparees had indeed remained in pression, during the Williamite Wars, had synonymy with the official Jacobite armies unimaginable socio-economic consequences. throughout the conflict; hence they had been A contemporary account from Robert Hunt- a de facto, politicised partisan movement. ingdon commented on the terrible socio- This was finally acknowledged by the victo- economic devastation of war: rious Williamite authorities when the Rap- And ‘tis much alike to the im- parees were recognised as a politicised army poverished whether they are rap- by the declaration of an amnesty under the peried & undone by the Danish military articles of the Treaty of Limerick. 27Robert H. Murray, Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement, (London, 1911), pp. 265-266. 28 Letters from Colonel William Wolseley, 1690. ‘Pursuit of Irish Tories’, in John T. Gilbert (ed), A Jacobite Narrative of the War in Ireland 1688-1691, (Dublin, 1971), pp. 258-259. 29Ibid, p. 259. 30Robt. Huntingdon to Abp. Of Canterbury, 1690, Nov. 13, in Charles McNeill (ed), The Tanner Letters: Original Documents and Notices of Irish Affairs in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries, (Dublin, 1943), p. 506. 31J.C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923, (new ed., London, 1981), p. 148. 32J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, 1685-91, (new ed., Dublin, 2000), p. 258.

77 Conclusion base, and effectively clipped Jacobite resistance in Ireland. The Williamite Wars ended perhaps one of the most violent periods of Irish history, and Like all conflicts, it was not with- established a Protestant ascendancy in Ire- out its opportunists and Jacobite General land. The English crown thereafter stripped Hugh Balldearg O’Donnell’s defection to the all economic and religious freedoms from Williamite cause proved that in some cases the Catholic majority. Feudalism had tri- personal prejudices outweighed ideological umphed in Ireland, and along with it a na- adherence. With decisive defeats of the Ja- tive embryonic bourgeoisie was beginning cobite armies at the Battles of the Boyne, to emerge. It was indeed a tragedy that Aughrim, Galway, and Sligo, and with the the Rapparees had aligned themselves to Williamite forces in control of the ports, the the Jacobite cause rather than along class conflict was settled in 1691. An offering of lines. The Rapparees, however, proved more an amnesty to the defeated Jacobites and, effective than their Tory predecessors be- more importantly, to the Rapparees, within cause the English crown had retrospectively the articles of the Treaty of Limerick, vin- granted belligerent status to Rapparee ac- dicated the Rapparees as a politicised force, tions even when it was clear that the Ja- rather than as a previously derided group of cobites were losing the conflict. Rapparees apolitical bandits. However, the subsequent should, then, be viewed as a well organised Flight of the Wild Geese and the last of the partisan force and its operations at the Bog Gaelic aristocracy were to be a watershed in of Allen proved how effective guerrilla war in Irish history: the country was subsequently Ireland could be. Partisan armies in Europe re-colonised from Derry to Cork and admin- at this period also mirrored the Irish Rap- istrated on behalf of the English crown by parees; in particular the Danish Snapphane a native embryonic Irish Protestant bour- partisans whom fought against the Swedes geoisie from their parliament in Dublin. The in the Scanian Wars, or later, the Eastern- Rapparees, then, should be viewed as the European Haiduks and Cossacks. Sectari- last resistance from an old-Ireland that was anism and the formation of militias further rapidly changing. They, like the Tories, added to the European dimensions of the were trailblazers that provided Ireland with Williamite Wars, as the Swedish employed fighting-men and fighting-leaders, but failed similar sectarian militias to pacify Danish to avert the rapid constitutional and politi- resistance during the Scanian Wars. Sectar- cal changes that Ireland was undergoing dur- ian militias, in fact, terrorised the Catholic ing the late seventeenth and early eighteenth populace, weakened the Rapparees support centuries.