{"id":209998,"date":"2025-12-01T17:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/209998\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T17:47:11","slug":"motorcyclist-31-who-died-in-fatal-wexford-road-crash-is-named-as-newlywed-construction-worker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/209998\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorcyclist (31) who died in fatal Wexford road crash is named as newlywed construction worker"},"content":{"rendered":"

William Astley (31) was travelling along the R738 between Taghmon and Larkin\u2019s Cross when his motorcycle was involved in a single-vehicle crash at Growtown Upper, Barntown, at around 6.20 a.m. He was sadly pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n

A newlywed, William had only tied the knot with his beloved wife Chloe Cullen exactly four months previously, having been together for six years.<\/p>\n

Following a ceremony and reception at The Talbot Hotel, William posted on social media at the time: \u201cI can\u2019t believe that I not only married my best friend, but my soul mate.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had been working in the construction of the new \u20ac230 million customs and border control facility at Rosslare Europort, where he was well-liked and well-thought of by his colleagues.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The scene of the road traffic accident on the R738 road from Larkin’s Cross to Taghmon at Growtown, Taghmon in Wexford. INSET: the late William Astley. Pic: Jim Campbell<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s News in 90 seconds – Monday, December 1st 2025<\/p>\n

A former student at Bridgetown College, his old teacher and local councillor Jim Codd was devastated by the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m absolutely shook,\u201d he said, having recently been made aware of the news.<\/p>\n

\u201cI taught William years ago and we stayed in touch a little bit after he finished school. I\u2019d end up meeting him out and about every few weeks and we\u2019d always have a bit of a chat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe loved his motorbikes and did all the charity bike runs and that type of thing locally. He was a lovely, kind-hearted fella.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only met him a couple of weeks ago when we were down in Rosslare for the ribbon-cutting on the new customs facilities there. He shouted over to me with a big grin, \u2018Jim, why don\u2019t you get a photo with a real hard-working man!\u2019 So, I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Codd had the unenviable task of breaking the news to the rest of William\u2019s former teachers in the staffroom at Bridgetown College.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is just devastated by the news,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of upset people here. My heart is broken for poor Chloe and the rest of William\u2019s family. He was always such a pleasant and good-humoured fella. He was a joy to meet and was always up for a laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just in shock. The whole community down this way is devastated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The R738 road from Larkin’s Cross to Taghmon in Wexford was closed due to a fatal motorcyle accident on Monday morning. Pic: Jim Campbell<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed closed the R738 where the accident occurred for the morning on Monday to allow for a full technical examination from Garda forensic collision investigators.<\/p>\n

An appeal was also launched for any witnesses to this tragic incident to come forward to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling in the area between 6. am and 6.30 a.m. on Monday, December 1, 2025, are asked to make this footage available to investigating Garda\u00ed,\u201d a statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone with any information should contact Wexford Garda Station on 053 9165200, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"William Astley (31) was travelling along the R738 between Taghmon and Larkin\u2019s Cross when his motorcycle was involved…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":209999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7583,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-209998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-padraig-byrne","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115645569373147583","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209998","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=209998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}