The tragic death in a road crash in the US of Abbeyknockmoy born camogie star Ann Coleman (44) and her husband Joe O'Connell (50) has shocked people in her native area and in wider sports circles around the county and country. Ann and her husband Joe died after the vehicle they were travelling in along with members of their family crashed near Maquoketa in north-eastern Iowa. Their daughter Sarah, who was driving at the time and her younger brother Colman escaped with injuries that were not life-threatening. But a younger family member, Maeve (10) suffered more serious injuries and was being treated at Iowa City's University Hospital. Ann, from Crumlin, Ballyglunin is a member of one of the best known GAA families in Ireland and she won an All-Ireland junior camogie title with the Galway team in 1988. Her brother Michael was a star of Galway's last All-Ireland winning senior hurling team in 1988. Meanwhile Mattie Coleman was on the Galway senior football team beaten by Dublin in the All-Ireland final of 1983. He was also one of the select few to have won county senior championship medals in both hurling and football. Another brother Joe also won a county senior hurling medal with Abbeyknockmoy in 1988. Ann's husband Joe O'Connell is also well-known in GAA circles as he who was on Kerry senior teams for eight years. Family members, relations, friends and neighbours had tears in their eyes as they tried to console each other at the Coleman family home after news filtered through about the horrific crash on Sunday evening. "People in this parish and in surrounding area are in a state of shock at the tragic events in the USA. "It is a terrible tragedy for the family including Ann's elderly mother Bridget. But they are people of great faith who are doing their best to cope, " says Fr Joseph O'Brien PP Abbeyknockmoy. Ann's father Martin Joe Coleman died some years ago. She is one of a family of 12 and some of her siblings have already travelled to the States to console the couple's children who are left orphaned following the crash. Another brother, Eugene, who is living in the USA travelled to Iowa to be with them following the tragedy. Ann's husband Joe O'Connell is survived by his mother and a brother in Co Kerry. He travelled a lot between the USA and Ireland and he worked with the Kerry Group and more recently with Greencore. The family spent a lengthy holiday in Abbeyknockmoy at Christmas and early in the New Year and Ann was a very popular person in her home parish. She also played camogie with Castlegar, St Coleman's in Gort, Athenry and Glen Rovers in Cork. "Ann was described to me a person who was full of life and very involved in everything. She came back here when they set up a camogie team in Abbeyknockmoy some years ago. "The deaths of Ann and her husband have shocked everybody and as yet we are not sure of the funeral arrangements. But we remember them in our prayers and will be celebrating a Mass for them in the near future," says Fr O'Brien. According to websites in the USA Sarah O'Connell who was driving the vehicle had got her learner's driver permit some months ago. The Iowa State Patrol said that the vehicle drifted onto a shoulder and when the driver overcorrected this, it crashed. The family had been living in Madison, Wisconsin for some time and were travelling to the west coast for a holiday when the tragedy happened on Highway 61 about 250 kilometres west of Chicago. -Tuam Herald, 18th June 2009 Tweet

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