The mother of the Tyrone footballer Cormac McAnallen, who died suddenly last year, has said that tests carried out on the rest of her family have established that her husband also appears to have the condition that led to Cormac's death.
Bridget McAnallen said she, her other two sons Donal and Fergus and her husband Brendan, underwent screening in London by Prof Bill McKenna, a leading expert in sudden cardiac death.
"My sons didn't show any symptoms . . . but my husband did show the ECG which seemingly is typical of LQT-3," she said.
"He's said to have it but Prof McKenna said 'it's probably not going to affect you now'," she added. She said to the best of the family's knowledge at this stage, the cause of Cormac's death was a rare heart condition called LQT-3 syndrome.
Mrs McAnallen, who attended the conference on sudden cardiac death in Dublin on Saturday, said it also appeared, in recollection, there had been two other deaths in the family, on her husband's side, over the years which may have fallen into the sudden cardiac death category.
One was about 50 years ago, in a man in his early 20s who was a cyclist, and the second was in a 40-year-old within the past decade.
She called for screening for all families who might be at risk and said ideally all young people should be tested.
"I do think all young people should be screened - but if you had to choose a group to be screened you would choose athletes."
Mrs McAnallen said she was doing all she could to raise awareness of sudden cardiac death in an attempt to prevent other families being bereaved like hers. Cormac was just 24 when he died in March 2004.
She said a trust had been set up in Tyrone in Cormac's honour and it had already supplied defibrillators to at least 30 sporting clubs in the county and funded CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) training for at least six people in each area.