Gabrielle Monaghan with her grandfather as she picked up her results. Photo: Pacemaker Press.

A Co Antrim teenager has achieved top grades despite her father passing away from cancer while she was doing her A-level exams.

Gabrielle Monaghan juggled studying with visits to the hospice to see her father, Kieran Monaghan, and said she “just wanted to make him proud”.

The 18-year-old from Hannahstown studied at St Dominic’s Grammar School in west Belfast and achieved two A*s in Irish and PE, and an A in Health and Social Care.

Gabrielle picked up her results with her grandfather on Thursday, and said she “couldn’t be happier” with them.

“It was difficult trying to manage everything, trying to go from place to place but I just wanted to make him proud,” she said. “I needed to get the grades.

“It was hard but I just wanted to get it done.”

Her father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in August 2022, and died in May while she was sitting her exams.

When he was ill, Gabrielle visited him in hospice after school.

“He wasn’t well so I would have went to school and went over to the hospice to go and see him,” she explained.

“The school would have let me out early to go and see him at times. They were so good, even all the teachers.”

She added that she couldn’t have done it without the support of the staff at St Dominic’s.

“It’s literally the best school. The teachers couldn’t have helped me more than they did,” she said.

“They were so helpful and they really helped me get the grades that I wanted.”

After collecting her results, Gabrielle said her family is incredibly proud of her.

“My mummy is delighted, she couldn’t be happier. My granda was delighted too, he was straight down to the school with me.”

Gabrielle now has plans to go to St Mary’s in the autumn to become a teacher.