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. 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 and still held to the code of conduct of the traditional chiefs of the Irish clans. They share many 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". From 1650 to 1653, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, the tories caused the Parliamentarian forces led by Cromwell 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 first led a sweep of County Wicklow and the south midlands 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 zones, 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 townsmen