How Civil War foes became friends to the end

It’s a story which has made grown men cry; a member of the Beál na mBláth ambush party who afterwards reconciled with Michael Collins’s brother now lies next to him in a West Cork graveyard.

Next weekend, a special ceremony will remember the extraordinary friendship which grew between two men from opposite sides of the bitter Civil War.

The ceremony in Clonakilty will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the deaths of Seán (John) Collins, brother of General Michael Collins, and Jim Hurley, who as a 20-year-old, was a member of the ambush party which mounted the attack at Beál na mBláth on August 22, 1922 in which Michael Collins was killed.