Quirke tragedy has bonded Kilruane

By Shane Brophy

Nothing prepares you for what Kilruane MacDonaghs have had to endure this season.

While the tragedy that was the death of Dillon Quirke was greatest on the Quirke family and the Clonoulty/Rossmore club, it is easy to forget that there was an opponent on that fateful evening at FBD Semple Stadium that were also impacted in the form of Kilruane MacDonaghs.

Over the next four days, Kilruane effectively became another branch of the Quirke family and Clonoulty/Rossmore community, helping out in whatever way they could. But they also had to look after themselves as the trauma of what they experienced at Semple Stadium could have sent the team into a spiral but instead, it bonded them closer together.

“I won’t make any bones about it, it was a tough time,” admitted Kilruane MacDonaghs manager Liam O’Kelly.

“There was no book I could open to say you have to do this or that. I tried to do it as best I could to deal with the guys. We even rang Croke Park to email us down any stuff to help but in fairness to Croke Park while they were very helpful they had no handbook either. That is just what happened, it is not every day something like this happened.

“I remember going down the day of the funeral, we did a guard of honour and I compliment the players, they all togged out in their club attire. I remember Joe Hayes (former Clonoulty and Tipperary hurler) came down and shook hands with every single one of the Kilruane people in the line for coming, thirty or forty players.

“Every day he (Dillon is on my mind. There is a picture of him on the mass booklet in our house and everyday I wake up it is there.

“These lads can go and play sport but Dillon Quirke can’t do that so we have to be mindful of that in all situations in life. Craig Morgan can come back and play next year but Dillon Quirke can’t do that. My thoughts are always with the Quirke family, that will be for a lifetime.”

Just two weeks later, Kilruane suffered another massive blow when Craig Morgan, their star Tipperary defender and close friend of Dillon who stayed him as he fell to the ground at Semple Stadium suffered a season ending knee injury in the defeat to Nenagh Eire Og. Better teams than Kilruane would have thrown their hat at it in those circumstances but the manner in which they have gotten on with things since then is a testament to the spirit of this group.

“I could never see that bond being broken,” O’Kelly added.

“It is testament to the players and Craig Morgan, what he has endured since that, in the following match against Nenagh, an innocuous injury out over the side-line.”

However, that mental strength in Kilruane hasn’t been built up over the last two months, it has been coming for the last couple of years since Liam O’Kelly took charge, not an appointment welcomed by everyone in the club, but one that has worked out superbly well.

“It was the players who came to me two years ago,” he recalls.

“I wasn’t sure how the committee felt about it at the time. I got the job and I said to the guys, give me two years and we’ll try and get ye to a county final and we are here now at the county final door.”

He added: “The big thing I wanted to go when I came in was to create a team spirit.

“I don’t want to comment on previous Kilruane teams, it would be wrong to do that, but I can comment on what I have tried to deliver.

“We built a new gym (using half the sports hall in the Tomas MacDonagh Complex), that was the first thing we did. I approached the committee and put a financial plan in place in relation to how we were going to fund it. I got approval, it was a tight approval, I think there was one vote in it and one man keeps telling me that he gave me the vote (that got it passed)

“We got the gym built in around six to eight weeks, with huge help from my own son Jake. That started to create a spirit as prior to that we have five lads going to (the gym) the Abbey Court, four lads going to Portumna, a few lads going to Birr, so I tried to pull them all together and even the other night when I came here it was funny, the players were inside sweeping the place out, washing the sauna, washing the showers, and think how far have we come in a couple of years.

“We call it a players hub, that to me has been the real driving force behind this group of Kilruane players.”

O’Kelly sees himself as merely being the bus-driver of this Kilruane set-up as it is the players who have to go onto the field and perform. Everything has been put in place for them to prepare as best they can and its fruits are there in the form of a first county final appearance since 1986.

“I want everyone on the bus but if some lads don’t want to come on the bus, there is no problem,” O’Kelly says of his ethos.

“If some lads want to get off the bus at any time there is no issue, but the bus is always going and I am always driving the bus. It’s an open door policy.”

He added: “Some people might say to me, if ye only had A B or C but I never had A B or C when I took the job. I just got the group of players I had. I have an open-door policy. If a player arrives in today, he can train on the field with us.

“Eoin Hogan decided to step away when I came on board. At the latter end of last year Eoin Hogan came back in. He saw what was happening and liked what he saw. He asked me if he could come back in and he was a star man against Upperchurch.

“Seamus Hennessy is the same way. He is more influential now to be and to himself fore the last three or four years, and his hurling tells its own story.”

Many felt after the 2019 semi-final defeat to Borris-Ileigh where they played with a man advantage for the final twenty minutes, that was the best chance for this Kilruane team to win a county title had gone, but since then they have reached North final in 2021, losing to Kiladangan, and this year have reached a first county final in 36 years.

“Let’s be very honest about it, we have come along way this year,” O’Kelly said.

“We are starting to hurl that little bit better but make no mistake about it Kiladangan are favourites, they have been there three of the last four years but we’ll be ready.

“We have trained 185 times up to last week. There are guys out there (in the gym) nearly every night. The spirit is unreal.”

The Kilruane manager was also keen to reference two key personalities who helped bring this Kilruane team together over the last two years but who will miss the big occasion this Sunday, in the form of team trainer Dan Finnerty, son of Dennis Finnerty who will be honoured on Sunday on Nenagh Eire Og’s 1995 senior winning jubilee team, and strength & conditioning coach Paddy Quinlan, both of whom have departed for Australia for work purposes in recent weeks. We’re sure they’ll be nervously watching on in the early hours of the morning as Kilruane aim to complete a remarkable year.