Residents shocked at deaths of popular local family

LIVING in the heart of horse breeding and training country in the green plains to the west of the Wicklow mountains, the Sleator family were themselves connected with horseracing for many years.

Pat Sleator lived at home with his parents on the family farm at Ballinure, Grangecon, close to the county boundaries that separate Wicklow and Kildare.

His father, John Joe, was a farmer and much respected in the community, while his mother, Mary, taught for many years at Scoil Nioclas Naofa in Dunlavin — a few miles away across the west Wicklow countryside — until her retirement.