Tom McCaughren: the Irish war cry that terrified opponents in the fields of battle and game

It was on March 5, 1811 when the members of an Irish regiment who fought in the Napoleonic wars snatched an imperial eagle from the hands of the French. With due respect to the main honor of European rugby these days, that was a prize of great magnitude.

That was also a battle in which, according to an account, nothing started the French soldiers as much as the wild cry of “Fag an Bealach”, an ancient Irish war cry that means “clear the way” and the motto of some sports clubs in Ireland to this day.

Napoleon had declared that French soldiers should fight until death to retain their imperial eagles. And they did so.

During the battle of Barrosa in Spain, they fought against a bloody battle with the members of the 87th regiment of the feet, desperate to prevent their precious eagle from falling into enemy hands.

However, they did it in vain. The accounts say that two members of the 87th, Ensign Edward Keogh and Sergeant Patrick Masterson hurried to a group of French soldiers who gathered around its standard bearer. Keogh and several of the French were killed.

However, Masterson, which is said to be Co Roscommon, managed to take the standard, which was overcome by a golden eagle.

“By Jaysus, boys,” he alleges that he shouted. “I have the cuckoo!”

That was as much information as we could because, while we talked, the snipers above in the hills opened fire

If Masterson really said he is open to debate. However, what is beyond the dispute is that he won for his regiment, that the British had largely recruited in Ireland, the honor of being the first to capture an imperial eagle in the peninsular war.

It is not surprising that his cry of war, “Fag an Bealach”, became the motto of 87 when they became a rifle regiment, but it was not until I was in a task in Cyprus in 1964 that I learned what regiment it was.

He had gone to Cyprus to cover the activities of the 40th Infantry Battalion of Ireland, which was deployed on the island Problematic as part of a United Nations Peace Maintenance Force, and when things calmed down, I decided to visit the Irish soldiers of a British battalion, the Royal Inniskilling rifles.

Little I knew it was a trip that would almost cost my life. With two other or three journalists, I went up to the hills. There we find several soldiers with the UN Blue Boina Distinctive.

They were parked in a small tower on the other side of a long stone bridge that covers a dry river bed, and we crossed to talk to them, without realizing that we were in great danger.

We felt relieved to know that we had found members of the Royal Inniskilling Romiliers. While we talked, we show our ignorance of the British regiments and told us not to confuse them with the mists. The mists? – Yes. Irish rifle.

And that was the most information that we could because, while we talked, the snipers above in the hills opened fire.

It was only then that we knew that we had crossed the bridge during a break in the shooting and now we faced the problem of returning.

The inniskillings had helped submit Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916

There was a similar tower at the other end of the bridge, and we decided to run for it. In the middle of the way, the snipers opened fire again, but we moved on, and when we arrived at the tower we could hear the bullets crossing the eucalyptus leaves just above our heads.

It was too dangerous to continue, so we returned through the forest to the safety of the Irish area.

If I could have interviewed the commander of the Inniskillings, I am sure I would have told me that they had received his name from an ancient spelling from Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. But how had they become part of the UN Peace Maintenance Force? After all, they had fought against the Greek chipriotes when they rebelled against British dominance.

The UN, would have explained, needed men and teams quickly. The inniskillings were still on the island and could provide both. As a result, they became part of the peace maintenance force.

The commander could also have told me that the inniskillings had helped to submit to Easter that rises in Dublin in 1916, but I am sure that he would have emphasized that, like the real Irish rifles, they had fought with great distinction in the campaigns before, during and after the two world wars.

But why did the soldiers in the hills refer to the real Irish riflers like the mists? Because, I discovered, the 87th Foot Regiment was renamed Royal Irish Fusiliers, and had adopted the cry of the Irish war “Fag an Bealach” as its motto, spelling Faugh to Ballagh. That had led them to be nicknamed the Faughs, which for my ears sounded like fogs.

But where did this old war cry come from? During my research I found the answer in a footnote of a poem called Fag a Bealach By Charles Gavan Duffy, published in The spirit of the nation Magazine in 1845. He said that this was the cry of Connacht and Munster clans used in faction fights “to go through a fair with high hearts and crush Shillelaghs.”

He added that the British regiments raised in the south and west of the country brought their “old cry” to the continent. That would explain why it had been used by 87 in the battle of Barrosa. The battle cry “Fag and Bealach” was also used by Irish soldiers in the American Civil War, as many of us discovered when President Kennedy presented the flag of the fight 69 to the people of Ireland during a visit to the Dáil in 1963.

“Fag an Bealach” is also the motto of some sports clubs, including the Suttonian Rugby Soccer Club in Sutton, Dublin and Faughs in Templeogue, the oldest GAA club in Dublin, founded in 1885.

He is on his ridges, and I imagine that the shout of “Clear The Way, I am coming” would have been on the lips of many of his players while striving to victory.