Rapparees or raparees (from the Irish ropairí, plural of ropaire, whose primary meaning is "thruster, stabber",[1] and by extension a wielder of the half-pike or pike), were Irish guerrilla fighters who operated on the Royalist side during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and 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 armed robbery, cattle raiding, and selling protection against theft to provide for themselves, their families, and their clansmen 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 demanded of the traditional chiefs of the Irish clans.
They share many similarities with other dispossessed gentlemen-turned outlaws like Scotland's William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and the Black Douglas, England's real Hereward the Wake and legendary Robin Hood or the hajduks of Eastern Europe.