“A STAR that shines twice as bright shines only for half as long”. These words spoken by young Emma McGuire’s sister Sarah at her funeral Mass could sum up her full but short life.

Taken from this life when others are just planning their careers, she had packed more into her 33 years than many others whose life would stretch into a multiple of her lifespan.

Born into a sporting family, at eight years of age Emma got her first hunting pony, Toby, from John McNamara and hunted every weekend with the Limerick Harriers, accompanied by her mother, Antoinette, who only recently hung up her boots. Summer would see Emma hunter trialing, show jumping and playing Gaelic football with her local club, St Ailbie’s, and her native county Limerick. She also hunted young horses for John McNamara, Croom.

Finishing school, Emma did a science degree in the University of Limerick, but on her summer holidays worked with most of the top Limerick studs including Martinstown, Knockainey, Manister House, and as far away as Camas Park in Cashel.

Before taking up a “proper’’ job, she spent a winter with Michael and Jackie McDonagh MFH, bringing on young horses and ponies and hunting with the Blazers.

Emma’s first professional job was with John Halley and Fethard Equine Hospital where her lab skills were put to the test. It was John Egan, lab manager in Fethard, who took the young scientist under his wing and taught her everything she needed to know about bio-chemistry as it applied to a leading equine hospital.

However after four years, the travel bug prevailed and in 2017, Emma set off with a group of friends for Australia via Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. She wasn’t too long in Australia when her love of horses prevailed and she ended up prepping yearlings with Patti and Phil Campbell of Blue Gum Farm in Euroa, one of the leading consignors of elite bloodstock in Victoria. She was chosen to lead up the yearling that topped the sales at AUD$1.1 million.

Sadly it was around then that Emma became ill and with a lot of support from the Campbells, her colleagues who had now become her friends in Blue Gum, and her football team mates in Melbourne, she returned home for treatment which initially showed great promise. However, the dreaded disease was only biding its time and shortly after returning from holidays in the USA, Emma again became ill only to loose her short life a brief few months later, surrounded by her loving family.

To her parents, Dan and Ann, in their inexpressible grief and her family, Mark, Sarah, Joanne and Daniel and her boyfriend Eoin, we offer our deepest sympathy. The loss of one so young and gifted with so many talents leaves a void in a family which can never be filled but hopefully, with time, may be eased.

May she rest in peace.