{"id":239978,"date":"2025-12-18T22:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/239978\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T22:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T22:24:08","slug":"tributes-paid-as-amazing-teacher-and-talented-meath-gaa-player-dies-in-australia-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/239978\/","title":{"rendered":"Tributes paid as \u2018amazing teacher\u2019 and talented Meath GAA player dies in Australia \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Communities in Ireland and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/australia\/\">Australia<\/a> have paid tribute to  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/meath\/\">Co Meath<\/a> woman Sarah Halpenny (29), who has died suddenly in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/melbourne\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/melbourne\/\">Melbourne<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A former teacher with Kingscourt National School in Co Cavan, Ms Halpenny was employed at the Sacred Heart Primary School, St Albans, Melbourne, while in Australia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Her family are from Bengerstown, Lobinstown, near Navan in Co Meath. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Halpenny, who emigrated to Australia some years ago, was well known in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/gaa\/\">GAA<\/a> circles in Ireland and Melbourne. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A notice on the RIP.ie website said: \u201cSarah tragically passed away unexpectedly in Melbourne, Australia. Sarah will be forever remembered and greatly missed by her heartbroken partner Ciar\u00e1n, parents David and Yvonne, sisters Emma and Grace, all surrounding family and her large of circle of friends.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">St Kevin\u2019s GAA club, Melbourne\u2019s largest gaelic games club,  said \u201cit is with a very heavy heart and sadness that we share the passing of our friend, colleague and team-mate, Sarah Halpenny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A notice on the club\u2019s social media said: \u201cSarah joined St Kevin\u2019s in late 2023 and it didn\u2019t take long for her to make her mark. On the field, she was an outstanding defender, determined, fearless in the tackle and tireless in her work rate.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The club said she had quickly become \u201ca key part in one of the most successful periods in our history.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Catholic parish of Kingscourt also paid tribute to Ms Halpenny: \u201cOur parish and the school community of St Joseph\u2019s, Kingscourt, is the poorer on the loss of our wonderful teacher and friend, Sarah Halpenny, who died suddenly in Australia. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cSarah was an amazing teacher, who was equally loved and adored by her pupils. She was also held in such high esteem and regard by all her colleagues and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/in-memory-of-sarah-halpenny?fbclid=IwY2xjawOw3lxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFreGtnZVNlMTVlWngwNENPc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHvhsoebONwC5wr5gE_g4vzVpC42_aRfMip6sG2aQygR8pkm4q5WC2gmEeS09_aem_9zcjnKyB13iWAti9EPmUkw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/in-memory-of-sarah-halpenny?fbclid=IwY2xjawOw3lxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFreGtnZVNlMTVlWngwNENPc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHvhsoebONwC5wr5gE_g4vzVpC42_aRfMip6sG2aQygR8pkm4q5WC2gmEeS09_aem_9zcjnKyB13iWAti9EPmUkw\">GoFundMe page<\/a> has been set up to assist in bringing Sarah\u2019s remains back to Ireland. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Communities in Ireland and Australia have paid tribute to Co Meath woman Sarah Halpenny (29), who has died&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1128,9,10,18,13,14,5286,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,1873,10486,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-239978","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-gaa","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-meath","23":"tag-melbourne","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-top-stories","26":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115742917445549070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239978","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=239978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}