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Rapparees or raparees (from the Irish ''ropairí'', plural of ''ropaire'', meaning half-pike or pike-wielding person) were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Jacobite side during the 1690s Williamite war in Ireland. Subsequently the name was also given to bandits and highwaymen in Ireland – many former guerrillas having turned to crime after the war ended. They share similarities with the hajduks of Eastern Europe. ==Wood kerne and Tories== There was a long tradition of guerrilla warfare 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 of the 1640s and 50s, irregular fighters on the Irish Confederate side were known as "tories", from the Irish word ''tóraidhe'' (modern ''tóraí'') meaning "pursuer".〔Patrick Weston Joyce, ''The origin and history of Irish names of places'',p. 50〕 From 1650–53, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the tories caused the occupying English Parliamentarian forces a great deal of trouble, attacking vulnerable garrisons, tax-collectors and supply columns and then melting away when faced with detachments of English troops. Henry Ireton first led a sweep of County Wicklow and the south midlands in September–October 1650 to try to clear it of tory guerrillas.〔Wheeler, Scott. ''Cromwell in Ireland'', p. 183〕 The Parliamentarian commander John Hewson during the 1650–51 winter, led punitive columns into the midlands and the Wicklow mountains to try and root out the tory bands. Although they captured a number of small castles and killed several hundred guerrillas, they were not able to stop the tories' attacks. In Wicklow especially, he destroyed all the food he found in order to starve the guerrillas into submission.〔Wheeler, pp. 198–199, 214〕 The guerrillas were eventually defeated by evicting all civilians from areas where they operated and killing those civilians then found within those zones. As of April 1651, the Parliamentarians designated areas such as Wicklow and much of the south of the country as what would now be called free-fire zones, where anyone found would be "taken slain and destroyed as enemies and their cattle and good shall be taken or spoiled as the goods of enemies". Hewson ordered the expulsion of Roman Catholic townsmen from Dublin, for fear they were aiding the tories in the countryside.〔Wheeler, p. 198〕 Other counter-guerrilla tactics included selling those captured as indentured labour and finally publishing surrender terms allowing tories to leave the country to enter military service in France and Spain.〔Wheeler, pp. 214, 223〕 The last organised bands of tories surrendered in 1653, when many of them left the country to serve in foreign armies.〔Ó Siochrú, Micheál. ''God's Executioner'', p. 219〕 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 was confiscated in the Cromwellian Settlement.〔Wheeler, p. 236, both quotations above from Scott Wheeler〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rapparee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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