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Home , Protestant Ascendancy, Rapparee, Treaty of Limerick, Williamite

Irish Partisans: Rapparees of the Wars, 1689- 1691

Ruairi Gallagher

Introduction 1691. What the Rapparees and the To- ries had in common, however, is that they To better understand this article, one should both provided with fighting-men and read the previous piece I wrote in the Irish fighting-leaders throughout the upheavals of Marxist Review 9 on Irish social- the seventeenth century. Despite this, the bandits during the Cromwellian and Restora- Rapparees, like the , lacked a revolu- tion periods of seventeenth century Ireland. tionary political ideology that could have el- This article, along with my previous work in evated the insurgency above the out-dated IMR 9, was based on a BA dissertation that politics of feudalism. Perhaps if Socialism I had completed a number of years ago. or had been discovered Still relevant as ever, Irish Socialist Re- a century earlier, the subject publican and Marxist, James Connolly, first could have then rejected feudalism in its wrote about the Jacobite period in his fa- entirety and liberated itself from the dead- mous Labour in Irish History. Connolly with weight of colonialism and foreign rule? Of his élan and his renowned style of writing course it’s counter-factual history, but it’s a regarded it as one of the greatest tragedies question well worth asking. of Irish history that Irish men and women, who fought in opposing armies, would die in order to seat a foreign King on the throne: It is equally beyond all ques- Origins and political signifi- tion that the whole struggle was cance of the Rapparees no earthly concern of theirs; Ah, way out on the moors where the wind shrieks and howls, that King James was one of Sure, he’ll find his lone home there amongst the wild fowl. the most worthless representa- No one there to welcome, no comrade has he. Ah, God help the poor outlaw, the wild rapparee. tives of a race that ever sat upon the throne... The war be- He has robbed many rich of their gold and their crown. He has outrode the soldiers who haunted him down. tween William and James offered Alas, he has boasted, they’ll never take me, a splendid opportunity to the Not a swordsman will capture the wild rapparee.

subject people of Ireland to make -Popular folk song devoted to the Rapparee2 a bid for freedom while the forces of their oppressors were rent in civil war. The opportunity was Rapparees (derived from the Irish word cast aside, and the subject peo- rapaire, meaning half-pike or pike wielding ple took sides on behalf of the person), were Irish partisans that fought opposing factions of their ene- alongside the Jacobites armies against the mies.1 Williamite forces during the Irish Williamite This article will, nevertheless, analyse Wars (1689-1691). Rappareeism in Ire- the Irish partisans that were active through- land originated, in 1687, during a period out the Williamite Wars in Ireland: the Rap- which would lead to the remodelling and parees. They differed somewhat from their ‘Catholization’ of the Irish army by Richard Tory social-bandit predecessors, insofar as Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnell; and provided Rappareeism was more politicised and was the opportunity for former vagrants or To- recognised as a political force under the ar- ries to join the Jacobite armies under King ticles of the Treaty of signed in James II as irregulars or commissioned of- 1James Connolly, Labour in Irish History, (, 1973), pp. 6-7. 2Henry Glassie, Passing the Time in Ballymenone: Folklore and History of an Community, (Dublin, 1982), p. 110.

75 ficers.3 Since the landing of the Williamite cised ‘Jacobite partisans’.7 Duke of Schomberg in Ireland, on 13 Au- gust 1689, the Jacobites were gradually los- The Rapparees: a fighting par- ing the conflict. Guerrilla war soon ensued and King James II encouraged Rapparee in- tisan force and the Bog of Allen cursions into enemy territories: the crowns In view of this, the Rapparees success- support helped to institutionalise Rappa- fully conducted a war of attrition against reeism. However, English contemporaries Williamite forces, notably making it difficult of the Williamite Wars tried in earnest to for , under the command of the depoliticise the Rapparees, dismissing them Duke of Schomberg, to leave camp for fear of as outlaws that were hand-in-glove with being ambushed or killed. As the Williamite the enemy in order to indirectly suppress historian, George Story further explained; Protestant settlers. Pro-Williamite histo- rian, George Story, also depoliticised the For they straggled abroad and Rapparees, linking it with Italian type ban- plundered those few people who ditry then prevalent throughout the con- were left, and some of them were tinent. This was not, in fact, a valid murdered by the Rapparees, a comparison as the banditry that engulfed word which we were strangers to Italy was regarded as non-political (Italy ‘till this time ... such of the Irish was not a unitary state until the nine- as are not in the army but the teenth century); whereas Ireland was, and country people, armed in a hos- the Williamite Wars strengthened the racial tile manner with half-pikes and and religious elements of Rappareeism.4 De- skeans, and some with sythes, or spite this, Williamite authorities continued musquets.8 to harangue and depoliticise the Rapparees. John Stevens, an English Jacobite, in- Operating in small cells and being con- congruously downplayed the political signif- cealable from the rest of the Irish popula- icance of the Rapparees and regarded them, tion would be an important factor for the too, as mere outlaws that solely robbed military effectiveness of the Rapparees; and and plundered the country ‘under pretence this can be attributed to the Williamite fail- of suppressing the rebellious Protestants’.5 ure to quickly suppress them.9 Historian, G. This disparagement is further illustrated by Simms, attributed the potency of the Rap- King William of Orange, who dismissed the parees to their extensive knowledge of the Rapparees as ‘Irish Papists, and other lewd local terrain and the compliance of the lo- and vagrant persons disaffected to the gov- cal Catholic population.10 This was evident ernment, [which] are observed to wander up during the Duke of Schomberg’s march to and down, to the terror of his Majesty’s sub- the Boyne: Rapparees had constantly ha- jects’.6 On the contrary, Irish historian Éa- rassed Williamite armies before the Battle monn Ó Ciardha has argued that contem- of the Boyne in July 1690. As with all suc- porary leaders of the political divide in Ire- cessful partisan movements, the element of land, such as the French Jacobite, General surprise provided the Rapparees with effec- D’Avaux, did view the Rapparees as politi- tive camouflage, as they could subsequently 3James Anthony Froude, The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century, (3 vols, New York, 1888), p. 178. 4Éamonn Ó Ciardha, Woodkerne, tories and rapparees in Ulster and north in the seventeenth century (M.A thesis, University College, Dublin, 1991) , p. 185. 5Robert 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). 7Éamonn Ó Ciardha, 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. 10J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, 1685-91, (new ed., Dublin, 2000), p. 198.

76 melt into the Irish populace, without be- in Ireland; for it reaches through ing detected by the Williamite authorities. a great part of the country, from George Story summed up the Rapparees hence as far as Athlone, and is at modus operandi; least forty miles in length having 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 tle hills, grown over with long fortified.14 grass, so that you may as soon find a hare as one of them: they Reference to fortifications provides ev- conceal their arms ... you may idence that the Bog of Allen had been search till you are weary before a key strategic zone for the Rapparees you find one gun: but when which further proves that they cannot sim- they have a mind to do mis- ply be regarded as bandits; but instead chief, they can all be ready in should be viewed as well organised parti- an hour’s warning, for everyone sans. The south Ulster border was another knows where to go to and fetch area that continued to be troublesome to the his own arms, though you do Williamite forces, and, during May 1690, a not.11 detachment of Rapparees ‘came over the bog near and carried away horses, cows, Detachments of Rapparees disrupted and men’ - causing Williamite armies a great Williamite communications by successfully deal of trouble.15 George Story, again, com- raiding small garrisons, stealing horses, in- mented on the remoteness of the south Ul- tercepting mail and couriers, together with ster area and the menace it had been to the destroying bridges; yet these operations did English authorities throughout the golden- not affect the outcome of the Battle of the age of Toryism during the Restoration pe- Boyne.12 Following the ignominious Jaco- riod; bite defeat at the Boyne - which precipitated the cowardly flight of James II from Ireland The country between Newry and - Rapparee forces retreated to the Bog of , is one of the wildest Allen (in the centre of Ireland); and many places of all Ireland, being the of the de-mobbed soldiers from the defeated hunt some years ago, of the fa- Jacobite armies also swelled the ranks of mous Tory, Redmond O’Hanlon, the Rapparees. Famous Rapparees, such as whose Ancestors were wont to ‘White Sergeant’, M’Cabe, Cavanagh, and brag that they were Standard- Bearers in times of old, to the ‘Galloping Hogan’, all at one point or an- 16 other operated near the Bog of Allen.13 Dur- Kings of Ulster. ing September 1690, George Story explained the strategic importance of the Bog of Allen Formation of militias and sec- for the Rapparees; tarian conflict The Rapparees by this time were Despite early successes, contemporaries such got to the end of the Bog of as French General, D’Avaux, commented on Allen, about twelve miles from the ever-increasing destitution of Jacobite Dublin (this Bog is the largest soldiers as the war prolonged: they were 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). 16George Warter Story, A true and impartial history, 15th September, p. 15.

77 forced to continuously plunder and pillage in Childs has explained, that one can compare order to survive. Such actions enabled the the conflict in Ireland to similar ‘total wars’ Williamites to further disparage the Rappa- that had been fought in contemporary Eu- rees as common bandits. Williamite sup- rope. pression, however, contributed to the pop- ular support given by the general public to the Rapparees: Williamite forces unmerci- European partisans and the fully pillaged the countryside and attacked Catholics at every given opportunity. Cou- Irish Rapparees pled with this, Williamite soldiers maltreat- These total wars, which Childs refers to, in- ment of the natives, in which they ‘begun cluded the Balkans during the Austrian of- to strip and rob most of the Irish ... made fensives after 1683; the French invasions of it natural for them [Catholics], after this, to Catalonia in 1689 and 1697; and the French turn Rapparee, and do us all the mischief invasion of Savoy-Piedmont from 1690 un- they could’.17 Williamite repression is fur- til 1696. Similar religiously inspired con- ther highlighted by the policy of setting-up flicts, like the Williamite Wars, were be- local Protestant militias, during the winter ing fought in Poland, from 1656 onwards, of 1690-1691, in an attempt to combat the against invading Protestant Swedes.20 Un- Rapparees, which further polarised sectarian doubtedly, the Irish Rapparees also greatly feeling among and Protes- resembled the Danish Snapphane partisans tants.18 Not surprisingly, this greatly added who fought alongside the Danish regular to the Catholic populace’s sense of injus- armies against the Swedes during the Sca- tice as these Protestant militias were noted nian Wars.21 These resilient Scanian peas- as extremely undisciplined and bitterly sec- ants, who joined the ranks of Snapphane, tarian. It has been previously argued that carried out a guerrilla war from between the militia-men proved unreliable when de- 1657-1658 and from 1674-1679 against the ployed with regular forces, but they were ef- Swedish occupation of the province of Sca- fective in providing county defence and secu- nia. rity when the Williamite forces were in the field of battle.19 One can also perhaps compare the Rap- parees to the Haiduks, the resistance fighters Each indiscriminate or coercive mea- from Eastern-Europe. Haiduks, as in Russia sure perpetuated by the militias or the or Hungary, could become attached to the Williamite forces hardened attitudes among nobility (similar with the Rapparees being the wider Catholic community; and the subsidiary to King James II or the House Williamite forces soon realized that it was of Stuart); and were also described as ban- extremely difficult to distinguish between dits or highwaymen who robbed not only Rapparees or ordinary Catholic civilians. the Ottoman Turkish occupation, but the On a number of occasions the Williamite native population or merchants on the high- army and Protestant militias did not make ways.22 Comparisons, too, can be made with distinction between Rapparee, civilians or the Cossacks. Cossack detachments had Jacobite soldiers. Williamite contempo- consisted of irregular or freebooting soldiers raries admitted that large numbers of inno- from Eastern-Europe and notably signed the cent civilians had been killed as suspected Treaty of Pereyaslav which would precipi- Rapparees. This would suggest, as John tate the outbreak of the Russo-Polish War 17Ibid, p. 138. 18Richard Doherty, The Williamite War in Ireland 1688-1691, (Dublin, 1998), p. 156. 19John Childs, The Williamite Wars 1688-1691, (London, 2007), p. 282 20John Childs. ‘The laws of war in seventeenth-century Europe and their application during the Jaco- bite War in Ireland, 1688-91’, in David Edwards, Pádraig 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. 22Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits, (new ed., Great Britain, 2000), pp. 78-79.

78 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- . 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- Notably, one such irregular to emerge in Ire- porters and Williamite victory land 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 , the Jacobite imised the influence of the . 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, erated with units composed of ‘Creaghts’, at least not to go three miles farther, and which had been accompanied by women, only then to a market’.26 Robert H. Mur- children and herds of cattle. This type of ray, however, has stressed that ambitious military formation was first pioneered by Protestants that envisaged climbing the so- Owen Roe O’Neill’s usage of Creaghts earlier cial ladder encouraged the seizing or arrest- in the seventeenth century during the Irish ing of Catholic priests in order to take ‘re- Cromwellian Wars. venge for past injuries, or to gain money or French Jacobite General, D’Avaux, re- lands’.27 Jacobite officials, too, were not ex- mained impressed with the Creaghts in Ul- empt: Williamites regarded them as no dif- ster; but in reality, O’Donnell offered to- ferent from the Rapparees. Colonel William ken resistance to the Williamite armies, and Wolseley, noted that his men had tracked 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. 27Robert H. Murray, Revolutionary Ireland and its Settlement, (London, 1911), pp. 265-266.

79 down and killed between 80 or 100 Tories The 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 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 31 Irishman is to be taught his duty of Limerick. Under the military articles only by the rod.28 of this treaty, the were to be provided with ships to be transported from Ireland and ordered not to return; Wolseley, in fact, had been forced to ad- thereafter, the exiles joined various armies mit that Andrew Tuite’s father and about in Europe (famously known as the Wild 1000 Rapparees under the command of Ger- Geese). More importantly, the military ar- ald Nugent - one-time Sheriff for King James ticles of the Treaty of Limerick applied to - had not yet been apprehended and were the Rapparees32; and provided further proof successfully holding out at a garrison in that the Rapparees had indeed remained in Mullingar.29 Despite this, waves of sup- synonymy with the official Jacobite armies pression, during the Williamite Wars, had throughout the conflict; hence they had been unimaginable socio-economic consequences. a de facto, politicised partisan movement. A contemporary account from Robert Hunt- This was finally acknowledged by the victo- ingdon commented on the terrible socio- rious Williamite authorities when the Rap- economic devastation of war: parees were recognised as a politicised army by the declaration of an amnesty under the military articles of the Treaty of Limerick. And ‘tis much alike to the im- poverished whether they are rap- peried & undone by the Danish Conclusion & French, the Dutch & English, The Williamite Wars ended perhaps one of or by the Irish Tories: only the the most violent periods of Irish history, and wounds of a friend are more un- established a in Ire- kind, cutting & deadly. From land. The English crown thereafter stripped this intolerable and almost li- all economic and religious freedoms from censed waste and destruction the the Catholic majority. Feudalism had tri- country must rationally expect a umphed in Ireland, and along with it a na- famine and mortality.30 tive embryonic bourgeoisie was beginning 28Letters 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. 31 J.C. Beckett, The Making of Modern Ireland 1603-1923, (new ed., London, 1981), p. 148. 32 J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland, 1685-91, (new ed., Dublin, 2000), p. 258.

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

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