Anne and Sarah O'Connell are shown at a recent soccer gathering. Sarah's parents, Anne and Joe O'Connell, died and their three children were hospitalized Sunday evening after a rollover crash on a rural highway in northeastern Iowa threw four of them from their van. An Irish couple were killed and their three children were injured in a car crash in the US over the weekend. Henry Joe O'Connell (50) , who is originally from Causeway in north Co Kerry, and his wife Sarah Ann Coleman (44) from Abbeyknockmoy, Co Galway, died when their van crashed on Sunday evening outside Maquoketa in northeastern Iowa.
Media in Wisconsin and Iowa quoted police sources as saying that the couple’s 15-year-old daughter was driving the car. She had recently received her learner’s licence. The family had emigrated to the US and were living in Madison, Wisconsin. It is understood they were on holiday and travelling to the west coast when the accident occurred. The couple had been prominently involved in the GAA in their native counties. Mr. O'Connell while Ann Coleman had played camogie for Gort and Galway. was a former Kerry hurler.
The Chicago Tribune quotes the Iowa State Patrol as stating the van drifted onto the shoulder, the driver overcorrected and the 2003 van rolled at least twice before coming to rest on its wheels. All but the driver were thrown from the van; she was the only one wearing a seat belt, records showed.
All-Ireland Junior Camogie Champions 1988. Ann Coleman is pictured third from the left (back row). Pic courtesy of http://www.galwaycamogie.net/
