Quote Originally Posted by cajunscot View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Bigkahuna View Post
I always thought they were called the Fianna.
Not the ROI's Armed Forces:

http://www.military.ie/

That being said, you will find Fianna on IDF cap badges and buttons, in reference to the legendary Fianna, as well as in the name of the Irish political party, Fianna Fail.
It is confusing, but the two phrases were both originally Irish translations for the "Irish Volunteers" and were later used by multiple other groups, sometimes at the same time.

Óglaigh na hÉireann - very literally "young male warband of Ireland" - Irish for the IDF (amongst other groups).

Fianna Fáil - Fianna literally means the followers of Fionn (mac Cumhaill) and symbolically means a warband/soldiers and Fáil means destiny (as in Lia Fáil - stone of destiny, now known as the Stone of Scone).
Taken together, Fianna Fáil = "soldiers of destiny" - now the name for Ireland's main political party, but also the "FF" in the centre of the capbadge of the IDF:



Confused? Who ever said we Irish were straightforward?