'Faug=a=Ballagh'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 28, 13 July 1905, Page 20

' Faug=a=Ballagh '

An esteemed Wellington correspondent writes us as fallows : While it is true that the generally accepted meaning of the pihrase or term ' Faug-a-Ballagh ' is (as you said in your iksue of last week) 'Lea\e the road' or ' Clear the way,' yet the strictly literal translation of the Gaelic phrase is, ' Leave the home ' or ' clear out from home.' It was e\idently useS 1 and applied to the Irish in connection with so many'of them being forced to lea\e their home and country through persecution, and was probably first applied to the portion of the Irish army who took ser\ice under the French, Auslrfans, and others on the Continent, and perhaps also to those who had to flee to the mountain wilds of Connaught. This may possibly have given rise to its adoption as a motto or battle-cry by the now famous Connaught Rangers — though the term is scarcely remimiseent of fame or gloi v for a miotto, The Conn<a>ught Rangers certainly use it in the sense Leave the road ' or ' clear the way.'