Father of bride dies at wedding celebration
Quin village native Karen O’Brien was sharing the dance floor on Saturday night with her 70-year-old father Tommy O’Brien and the wedding party when he collapsed shortly after the band started playing.
Hours earlier, the Clare man had walked his only daughter up the aisle at Quin Church to marry Mike O’Halloran.
The dance floor at the Bunratty Castle Hotel was cleared to allow an off-duty nurse and others work with the aid of a defibrillator to try to revive Mr O’Brien before an ambulance and paramedics arrived.
However, father-of-two Mr O’Brien never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead at University Hospital Limerick.
Mr O’Brien’s wife Noreen and only son Eoin were present when he collapsed. Karen, still in her wedding dress, travelled with her mother and brother to the hospital.
The newlyweds had booked a honeymoon to Mexico but are instead preparing for Mr O’Brien’s funeral Mass tomorrow at the church where they got married.
Local man Sonny Scanlan had just arrived at the hotel on Saturday for the afters of the wedding celebrations when he was met by crowds leaving the function room.
A friend of the O’Brien family, he said the village of Quin had been left “numbed”.
The retired Fine Gael councillor and former Shannin Airport worker said Mr O’Brien was on a waiting list for a heart bypass operation.
“Tommy was very much involved in the community. He was a very popular man and he got on with everyone. It is very sad for the family and is just awful what has happened,” he said.
Friend of the family and local shop owner Ger O’Halloran said: “there is as much a sense of shock in Quin today as there is a sense of loss”.
“The very unfortunate set of events make Tommy’s passing even more difficult.”
Mr O’Halloran is chairman of local soccer club Rhine Rovers, which recently made Mr O’Brien life president in honour of his contribution to the club over 34 years.
“Tommy was absolutely thrilled to get that honour and it was so well deserved. He was a founding member of the club. Tommy was one of the ‘go-to’ people in the community if you wanted something done. He was a real ‘roll up your sleeves’ type of man.”
Mr O’Halloran said that Tommy was “very involved in life in Quin” and was a corner back in the local team that won the county junior hurling championship in 1978.
Rhine Rovers are to provide a guard of honour at Mr O’Brien’s funeral tomorrow.
