SON IN A MILLION
Tipp U21 hero Dan remembers his day in the sun and blazing a trail which his beloved boy followed
DILLON QUIRKE’S hurling career followed a similar path to his father’s for a time – but he wasn’t slow to remind Dan once they diverged.
The peak of Dan’s hurling life came in 1989 as he starred in Tipperary’s All-ireland under-21 final win over Offaly. He scored 3-2, all of it coming in a madcap eight-minute period.
A few weeks later, he was part of the Clonoulty-rossmore team that won the club’s first county title in 101 years.
Twenty-nine years on, Dillon matched those feats. A classy wing-back on the Tipp team that won the last ever under-21 title before the grade changed to under-20 in 2018, he was outstanding at centre-forward as the club reclaimed the Dan Breen Cup that October.
Liam Sheedy soon came calling but, having been struck by myocarditis, he had to step back in the 2019 season as Tipp won the All-ireland.
Dillon collapsed and died while playing for his club Clonoultyrossmore at Semple
Stadium in August 2022.
He was established on the Premier county team by then, something his father could never quite manage at senior level, though Dan did line out for the footballers.
“I was in and out with
Babs [Keating] for a while but it never worked, for whatever reason,” he explains. “In my own opinion, I probably wasn’t good enough.”
Dillon most certainly was good enough, however, and Dan (below, with his wife Hazel and Dillon) heard all about it.
“The two of us had great banter. Dillon was a big rugby fan, as am I. We’re both United fans so we went to Old Trafford many times. We went with Munster all over Europe.
“We went to the
Heineken Cup final in
2006 and Dillon was eight. We must have went to 50 Munster matches and we went with the Lions to New Zealand in 2017 for 21 days, the two of us, so it was always about banter.
“It was all about slagging really but I used to say to him, ‘Now, when you go out, remember that you’re Dan Quirke’s son, Dillon, not to forget that’.
“But the year he finally made the breakthrough with Tipp in ‘22 he came back to me and he says, ‘Come here to me now Dan, remember now you’re Dillon Quirke’s dad, I’m not Dan Quirke’s son!’ That was the kind of banter we used to go on with. We had a mighty time.”
With Tipperary and Offaly meeting in the under-20 final and a huge attendance expected, it brings to mind arguably the most famous final in the competition’s history 35 years ago in which Dan starred.
Tipperary had won the senior title for the first time in 18 years the previous Sunday, with Offaly picking up their third minor crown in four seasons in the curtain raiser.
With Tipp fielding three and Offaly four from their victorious sides from seven days earlier, a massive crowd wedged into O’moore Park.
“We were in the dressing room waiting to go out and we were told we had to wait 20 minutes. I think 35,000 were there and I know a lot of people that even came actually turned and went back because of the traffic, so it was a mighty occasion.”
Offaly went seven points up early on but Quirke took hold of the game, fielding a Sheedy delivery ahead of Damien Geoghegan and finishing brilliantly past a helpless John Troy.
“There wasn’t too many places I could put it. I put it in the right place. That didn’t happen to me too often now, believe me. That was nice,” reflected Dan, below (with the Tipperary on that day).
“The second one was from out the side, it took a bad bounce, the ground was like a rock and, bang, into the top of the net.
“The third one, a free came off the post and I was there to meet it. It’s nice to be lucky some days. I didn’t get too many of them.”
Tipp held on in the second half amid a fierce Offaly onslaught to win a classic by two points in the end, 4-10 to 3-11.
“They had a serious team, the Troys, you had the Pilkingtons, the Dooleys, Michael Duignan, Daithi Regan, Brian Whelahan, God they had a tremendous team. If I’m honest, I think we
were very lucky to win that day.”
His exploits on that day are still regularly quoted to him, all these years on.
“It’s thrown at me too often, to be honest about it.
Sure look, I take it as it is. It was a great day. I suppose we were going so well at the time and it’s remembered.
“It’s a funny one, I actually scored 3-1 in the Munster final against Limerick and I’d say very few know about it so it’s funny the way things happen, isn’t it?”