FIRST THOUGHTS: Family that symbolised Civil War division

THE story of the Hales brothers involved two cataclysmic events that had profound impacts on the Civil War in 1922. 

The first of those incidents was the role of Tom Hales in organising the ambush at Béal na Bláth in which Michael Collins in August 1922.

Although the ambush had been set up to attack Collins, it was called off after it was assumed that he had returned to Cork City by a different route.