Conor Whelan

There's no real evidence behind it.

I think that's very, very dangerous.

So I suppose those things combined with kind of a curiosity of

just exploring and learning I just felt I was at the perfect age I think I was 25 or something I didn't have any major commitments so just felt that yeah let's just go for it and look at it was it was very challenging to give up a full-time job and amount of people that were telling me about the pension and all this sort of stuff that you're leaving behind but ultimately I just felt that it was the right thing to do and in hindsight it's turned out to be so.

Uh, 16.

Yeah, he would have been, like, he would have, like, my kind of pathway, Hurling, would have been kind of similar to his.

Like, he, like, I always remember when I was playing under 14 with Galway, like, I wasn't starting on the team and, like, that was, like, the first kind of...

That's the first taste of inter-county experience and that was really, really hard because I felt like I had the credentials to be starting and I always remember Niall wasn't playing either when he was under 14 and then he ended up playing two years minor.

So I was kind of like, Jesus, if he can do that, well then...

I can do that and then I ended up playing two years minor in the same way he did and then like I was I used to go to his games to be watching him he's playing under 21 like he was marking Kevin Downs he's playing full back and the one they are in that year like and go I actually haven't won one since um

But yeah, I just think he, I suppose it just, he showed you what was possible, I suppose, really.

Like I wouldn't have been that close.

I'm like, I wouldn't have had a very, very close relationship with him.

But I think just his pathway and trajectory kind of gave me the belief that it was possible, I suppose, really.

Was there any hint that that could have happened or was that just a complete bolt out of the blue?

suicide wouldn't have been that, I suppose, explicitly of a topic people would talk about.

So I didn't really know what it was or I didn't really know mental health issues.

I didn't really know anything about it.

I can always remember taking out my phone and Googling suicide and not having a clue.

I just think that's mad that I was in school at the age of 16 and had no...