Helmet safety project earns award for Quirke

A HURLING Helmet Testing project undertaken by CIT Mechanical Engineering Degree student, Brendan Quirke, has been declared winner of the prestigious ISEA 2005 Sports Engineering Project Competition in London.

Prior to 2005, no Irish safety standards existed regarding hurling helmets. A recent survey at the Eye Casualty Department in the Waterford Regional Hospital determined that, over a 12-month period, 98 individual sports-related eye injuries were treated. Of these, 30% resulted from hurling matches.

Under new legislation, Mycrosports Ltd (a hurling helmet design and manufacturing company), are obliged to forward samples of all new hurling helmet designs to a testing centre in Canada for impact testing.