{"id":129616,"date":"2025-10-18T06:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-18T06:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129616\/"},"modified":"2025-10-18T06:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T06:11:08","slug":"dublin-man-on-j1-visa-in-texas-dies-following-road-incident-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/129616\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin man on J1 visa in Texas dies following road incident \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Dublin<\/a> man who was working in Texas<\/a> while on a J1 visa has died following a road incident last Friday night.<\/p>\n

John Kirby, who was in his early 20s, is understood to have been knocked down by a truck in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n

Mr Kirby was a business and marketing graduate. He suffered serious head injuries and was brought to a nearby hospital after the incident but died last Wednesday. The south county Dublin native had been in Texas with three Blackrock College<\/a> schoolfriends.<\/p>\n

Blackrock College Rugby Football Club (RFC) paid tribute in a social media post.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said they are \u201caware of the case and are providing consular assistance.\u201d <\/p>\n

The director of Blackrock College RFC, Michael Hearty added his condolences saying it is with \u201cdeep sadness\u201d that he shared the news of the passing.<\/p>\n

Mr Hearty said that Mr Kirby was a \u201cmuch-loved member\u201d of the Blackrock College RFC family, and his loss has been felt \u201cprofoundly\u201d across the club and all teams.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cI first met John in the summer of 2019 during preseason training. Immediately I was drawn to his infectious personality and big smile. He was charismatic, witty and very popular.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Kirby. Photograph: Blackrock College RFC <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment he pulled on the Rock jersey, he embodied everything our club stands for, commitment, friendship, and heart. He was a talented player, a dedicated team-mate, and above all, a guy who brought joy to everyone around him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The director explained that Mr Kirby had that \u201cspecial kind of presence\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cA big, infectious smile and a quick sense of humour that could lift the whole dressingroom. Whether it was during training on a horrible wet Tuesday night or over a pint in the clubhouse, he had a way of making people laugh and feel included. He was the sort of team-mate you were always happy to see walk through the door,\u201d Mr Hearty noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis kindness, and sense of fun left a mark on everyone who knew him. The word no, wasn\u2019t in his vocabulary.\u201d<\/p>\n

His funeral arrangements are yet to be announced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Dublin man who was working in Texas while on a J1 visa has died following a road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[78003,9,10,8104,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,2461,7,8,384],"class_list":{"0":"post-129616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-blackrock-college","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-texas","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories","27":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}