'He is on my shoulder the whole time,' - Dad of Tipperary hurler Dillon Quirke
In a moving interview, Dan Quirke speaks about the life-saving work of the Dillon Quirke Foundation
In a moving interview, the father of Tipperary hurler Dillon Quirke, who died while playing a match in Semple Stadium in 2022, said Dillon was “on my shoulder the whole time.”
In the interview on the Everyday Is A School Day podcast, Dan Quirke spoke about how he and his family were coping with their grief and of the life-saving work being carried out by the Dillon Quirke Foundation.
“I want to give him a hug or a kiss or shake his hand, but that will never happen,” said Dan Quirke when he spoke about the emotion that hits him when he looks at a picture of Dillon.
Dan Quirke spoke passionately about the goals of the Dillon Quirke Foundation, which is now carrying out screening in sixteen different sports in every county in Ireland.
The Foundation set up to remember Dillon carried out 10,000 screenings during 2024.
On average, 100 young people in Ireland die each year from SADS (Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome).
In an effort to reduce this number, the Foundation aims to promote awareness of the importance of cardiac screening in preventing SADS and to provide cardiac screening for young people nationwide. The screenings are carried out by Advanced Medical Services (AMS), a provider of on-site medical services.
“We were numb for weeks on end as to why it happened and asked ourselves was there anything we could do to make sure other parents would not have to go through the same thing,” said Dan Quirke when speaking about why the family decided to establish the Dillon Quirke Foundation.
He said the condition was a “secret killer” as he recalled the day they lost Dillon.
"When Dillon hit the ground, he was gone; there was no coming back. We worked on him for forty minutes under the stand, but he never came back. It was a beautiful way for him to pass in Semple Stadium, but for everybody left behind, it was devastating,” Dan Quirke told the interview panel of Paddy O’Gorman, Des Feeney, and Patrick Hickey.
“He is on my shoulder the whole time telling us that we were saving lives and to keep going,” said Dan Quirke.