IN THE HEART of Midleton Co Cork, lies the town’s GAA club. It was a place where Patrick Dunlea spent a lot of his childhood collecting cones and traipsing after his dad who was the coach there when he was growing up.

It was also at the hall that at the time, converted into Midleton’s blood donation clinic, where GAA players and coaches would come together after training to donate, along with the rest of the community.

Like a lot of little boys, Patrick’s father was his hero as a child and a big influence in how important blood donation became for him as he became an adult, which he started at 19 years of age:

Boys always want to follow in their dad’s footsteps. When he was donating I was with him most of the time and it was a great inspiration to me. He’d even give me his crisps and fizzy orange after!

For Patrick, the worlds of GAA and blood donation have “always been intertwined”. Even now when he regularly gives blood, it’s a chance to catch up with friends from the GAA scene that he’s lost touch with:

You meet people at the clinic that you wouldn’t necessarily see all the time, like guys I used to play hurling with. It goes back to the old days when the donations took place in the hall – the connection is still there.

In his eyes, it’s the perfect fit for those who are passionate about GAA and their communities to make blood donation part of their routine: “If you’ve time to go to the gym or train, you’ve time to donate.”

As a GAA coach himself, Patrick reminds us that donating won’t even effect your workout routine as long as you refuel your body afterwards and hydrate beforehand – both him and his dad have donated after training and are back to training the very next day.

They are just two people who have contributed to Ireland’s limited resources of donated blood, of which 67% is used to fight cancer. Unfortunately, it was a fact that Patrick came to experience firsthand when his dad was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

And although only 3% of the eligible population donate blood, one in four of us will need a blood transfusion at some stage in our lives. It’s something that made a massive difference to Patrick’s father’s quality of life during his illness:

It’s really personal to me as my dad was sick for so long and you could see how good he looked and how strong he felt after a blood transfusion.

His dad went from decades of donating to receiving blood and platelets from others to help to fight his cancer. “He had been donating for so long and then suddenly he was relying on people’s donations to keep him alive and fight the sickness.”

During his father’s illness, it became even more clear how important both his and his dad’s donations had been: “You appreciate it more when he got sick, that people were taking time out to donate blood for him.”

Now the father of three, Patrick hopes his kids will eventually become the third generation of his family to become regular donors, (though he wouldn’t put any pressure on them).

The group of people he would appeal to however, is anyone who plays football, hurling or camogie (or indeed, just keeps active) to keep our blood resources at the levels they need to be in order to save lives:

These are young, fit people who are very active. It’s a great thing to make time for after training.

Aside from the fact that blood donation saves lives and improves the quality of life for those with terminal illnesses, it’s also something that will make you feel good, says Patrick: “They’ll get a huge boost from it. I always do when I donate anyway.”

Patrick’s story is just one of the IBTS’  Every One Counts campaign, which shows how blood donors around Ireland are supporting small communities by donating blood. Some 3,000 donations are needed each week in Ireland to keep up with the demand, and 67% of these help patients to fight cancer.