Dean Dunphy football match raises €700 for research team

ON AUGUST 29, family and friends of the late Dean Dunphy gathered at the Lawns in Ballyfermot to raise funds for the Dean Dunphy Foundation which was set up following his death in 2025.

Up to €700 was raised between players, substitutes and a game of Spot the Balls, all of which will go towards the research team at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland.

Both teams played in the kits of the two most recent teams that Dean played for; Chapelizod FC and CIE Ranch FC, with CIE ranch coming out with the win by the end.

After the kick-about, the trophy was presented by Dean’s daughter Sloane and his nieces Ella and Beau to the winning team, which was captained by his brother Paul.

Dean’s wife, Michaela set up the Foundation to raise awareness for glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, following Dean’s death last May, only 21 months after diagnosis.

Dean was only 33 years old when he died from brain cancer, yet Michaela was told that the disease was an “old man’s disease”, and was incurable, but treatable.

Doctors told the duo that it was ‘bad luck’ that a man as young as Dean got the disease, but Michaela knows of several other people in the area around Dean’s age that have also battled the disease.

Last September, the Dunphy family held a fundraiser football match and a raffle to get the foundation off the ground and managed to raise €12,000.

The community in Ballyfermot proved to be incredibly generous towards the family, as a previous GoFundMe helped to finance the Dunphys’ wedding.

Dean passed away in his wife’s arms in the early hours of Wednesday, May 21, only two days after their wedding.

He is survived by Michaela and their four-year-old daughter, the “resilient” Sloane, whom Michaela states is part of the reason why she’s still here today, along with the foundation.

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.