Dillon Quirke loved nothing more than wearing the green and gold of his beloved Clonoulty/Rossmore.Photo: Eamonn McGee

KILLINAN END - Dillon Quirke was born to be a hurler

Sometimes there are no words to capture adequately the essence of such a devastating blow to a family and a community as the death of Dillon Quirke.

The extra poignancy of its unfolding in Semple Stadium and in the Clonoulty-Rossmore colours makes it a uniquely emotional and challenging event. We are left only to marvel at the myriad achievements of a young life.

To have won a Harty Cup medal, All-Ireland medals at Minor and Under-21, County Under-21 and County Senior medals, and with what seemed a very promising future in the Blue and Gold ahead at age of 24 is a fair legacy by any standards. In a year which was almost unrelentingly negative and despairing with regard to results for the Tipperary senior hurling team, you looked for nuggets of consolation.

The early promise of Conor Bowe before injury disrupted, the continued maturation of Jake Morris, the thrust of Mark Kehoe, and the tidiness of Craig Morgan all gave cause for calm underneath all the surface turmoil. For those who enjoy their defenders unadorned, abrasive, and direct, Dillon Quirke especially caught the eye. In spite of operating under pressure he played every second of the Munster championship, which in a team under duress says something about his capabilities. In the ‘what might have been’ thoughts we will reflect that this was a hurling career which would have touched the highest points.

His club is curiously placed – a West Tipp club, but a peripheral one which borders the hurling heartland of Mid Tipperary. It is a rural club which has punched its weight and then some with Dillon just the latest in a rich vein of talent that has swapped Green and Gold for Blue and Gold with no little success.

Most famously, perhaps it is fair to say, was Tony Brennan, a tower of a man who played full-back on the 1949-51 Tipp three in a row team. He had played at the edge of the other square in 1945 when Tipp beat Kilkenny in an All-Ireland final which must have been a celebration of hurling like this year’s final. It was the first one since the end of the previous decade which was not governed by emergency conditions, travel restrictions, and consequently small crowds.

The follow-up to that 1945 win was maybe not what would have been expected. It too featured a wing-back – Moycarkey’s Tommy Purcell – taken tragically young, and also a team which struggled to win a game for a few years. Like now, Tipp did have some glistening under-age talent riding to the rescue. By 1950 Tony Brennan was in the control room of the most famous defensive sextet, along with the incomparable Tony Reddin, that ever wore the Blue and Gold.

In or around May 1985, in conversation with Dan Quirke, Dillon’s father, the question of Declan Ryan came up. Dan was number 14 on the Tipp Minor team that year and inevitably the ability of his friend Declan was raised. Dan casually replied, “oh yeah, he’s the best Minor hurler in the county”, as if this was so obvious that it didn’t need to be reinforced.

Indeed, Declan joined the Tipp senior squad for the National Hurling League in October 1987 yet could not make the cut for a Munster Minor hurling final in July 1985. Riddle me that. In hindsight the Cork team that won the All-Ireland that year must have been happy to avoid him.

Dan and Declan certainly provided a fertile background for the young Dillon. They played together in a blistering Munster Final against Cork minors a year later in Killarney, the same venue where a beautiful chaos saw Tipp, and Tony Brennan, beat Cork seniors in 1950.

Declan became an All-Star in 1988 but it was twelve months on when Tipperary enjoyed one of its best years and Clonoulty-Rossmore its finest hour. Dan Quirke went a fair way to winning the Under-21 final for Tipp on his own from full-forward, while the club gave powerfully to the Seniors with Joe Hayes, John Kennedy, and Declan Ryan all winning All-Ireland medals.

Despite all of this maybe their greatest pleasure came on County Final day. And what a day that was surely a record attendance on Dan Breen day. Clonoulty had taken out the previous year’s winners Loughmore-Castleiney in the quarter-final and proved much too strong for a work-in-progress Toomevara team in the semi-final. It is nearly forgotten at this stage how close Lorrha came in the other semi-final losing out by just a point.

The year featured the club’s first West title since 1951 – it is hard to believe that eighteen of the club’s 23 West titles have been won since 1989. But the County final won under the tutelage of Len Gaynor trumped all. Victory over Holycross-Ballycahill – who themselves would win the following year – was a slog but a two-point win bridged a century long gap for Clonoulty-Rossmore. It is hard to imagine that it will ever come to that again.

This is fertile ground from which sprung a talent such as Dillon Quirke. In a curious coincidence, that excellent Clonoulty team gave up its title in 1990 in the face of a typically doughty Kilruane team in Semple Stadium.

The same club which too stood with Dillon Quirke in the end all those years later. Solas na bhFlaitheas dá anam dílis.