Courtney McGrailThe Hales Brothers and the Irish Revolution
by Liz Gillis
(Mercier Press 2016)
J. Anthony Gaughan
Seán and Tom Hales hailed from Ballinadee, near Bandon, Co Cork. They were born into a family of nine siblings, Seán in 1880, Tom in 1892. Both attended the local national school and later Warner’s Lane school in Bandon. After leaving school Seán worked with his father on the family farm and Tom was employed at Hartes’s timber yard in Bandon.
The brothers inherited their father’s hatred of landlords, the Irish Party and British rule. Tom joined the Irish Volunteers at their inception in 1913, Seán joined in 1915 and became captain of the local company. Tom was among those who assembled at Crookstown, near Macroom, in preparation for the Easter Rising.
Subsequently he insisted on an inquiry into the inaction and confusion of Brigade HQ in Cork during Easter week and the decision to surrender arms. After the Rising Tom went ‘on the run’. Seán was arrested and imprisoned in Frongoch internment camp in Wales, where he became a close friend of Michael Collins.
Engagements
The brothers were involved in most of the engagements with the crown forces in West Cork during the War of Independence, with Tom as OC, West Cork Brigade, IRA and Seán, commander of one of its battalions.
Tom was captured by the crown forces in July 1920, tortured and imprisoned until after the Anglo-Irish truce.
In the meantime, Seán and his sister, Madge, were the main conduit whereby Michael Collins supplied the West Cork Brigade with arms. When the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed in 1921 members of the Hales family found themselves on opposing sides. Seán and Madge who were greatly influenced by the charismatic Collins, supported the Treaty – the rest of the family opposed it.
Following the outbreak of the Civil War the Anti-Treatyites established the ‘Munster Republic’. Seán Hales, then a Brigadier General in the National Army, was dispatched by the Provisional Government to clear the Anti-Treatyites out of their strongholds in West Cork.
Landing by boat at Bantry with his troops he was soon in control of Skibbereen, Clonakilty and Bandon. Ironically the commander of the forces opposing him was his brother, Tom!
Soon afterwards the brothers were privy to one of the seminal tragedies of the Civil War. On August 22, 1922 Michael Collins, then commander-in-chief of the National Army, set out on an inspection of the army’s outposts in West Cork. During the inspection he met and consulted with Seán Hales, who was in charge of the outpost in Bandon.
After taking his leave of Hales and on his journey back to Cork, Collins and his party were ambushed at Beál na mBláth and during the exchanges Collins was fatally wounded. Tom Hales had organised the ambush.
Seán Hales was to feature again in equally traumatic events in the continuing civil war. Apart from his rank in the Irish Free State army, Hales was a TD for County Cork. On 7 December, 1922, on his way to Dáil Éireann he was assassinated. This followed a directive from Liam Lynch, OC of the Anti-Treaty forces, that they regard as legitimate targets all the TDs and Senators who had voted for the Public Safety Act which established military courts with the power to impose the death penalty.
In reprisal to the killing of Hales, the Irish Free State government ordered the execution without trial of four prominent anti-treaty prisoners – one from each province: Rory O’Connor, Liam Mellows, Richard Barrett and Joseph McKelvey.
Liz Gillis’ well researched narrative illustrates the deep divisions which the Irish Revolution caused between brothers and families and some of the tragedies associated therewith. Happily these divisions have for the most part been healed by the passage of time.