The TWELFTH regiment was employed in various services during the winter, and detached parties of the corps had several rencounters with the bands of armed peasantry called _Rapparees_. Towards the end of December, the regiment was in motion against the enemy, and on the 31st of that month it approached the town of _Lanesborough_, when it encountered some opposition from a body of Irish troops formed up to oppose its advance. Colonel Brewer led the regiment forward with great gallantry; some sharp fighting ensued, and the enemy was driven from the trenches cut across the road, through the town, and across the river. The TWELFTH were unable to follow their opponents for want of boats or other means to cross the stream. [Sidenote: 1691] From Lanesborough the regiment marched to Mullingar, of which place its commanding officer, Colonel BREWER, was appointed governor. The quarters of the regiment were infested with parties of armed Roman Catholic peasantry, called rapparees, and on the 28th of April, Colonel Brewer advanced with six hundred men of the TWELFTH and eighteenth regiments, and twenty dragoons, towards the castle of _Donore_, beyond which place two thousand rapparees had taken post and occupied a number of huts. At daybreak the following morning the soldiers arrived at the quarters of the rapparees, who formed for battle on the hills; but when the musketeers of the TWELFTH and eighteenth advanced to commence the action, the enemy fled; the soldiers pursued some distance, and killed fifty of the fugitives. Parties of rapparees continued to hover round Mullingar, and on the 2nd of May, they intercepted a serjeant and four soldiers of the TWELFTH regiment between that place and _Kinnegad_; they put the serjeant and three of the soldiers to death, and put out the eyes of the fourth soldier. Three of the perpetrators of this cruelty were captured; two of them were hanged on the spot, and the third, to save his life, guided Captain Poynes and a hundred soldiers of the regiment, to one of the lurking-places of the rapparees, where the men of the TWELFTH fell suddenly upon a large company of these marauders, killed forty, dispersed the remainder, and recovered a quantity of property, which had been taken from the Protestants. Towards the end of May, one division of the army encamped at Mullingar, where General De Ginkell arrived and assumed the command. From Mullingar the army advanced to the fort of _Ballymore_, which was besieged, and surrendered on the 8th of June.