Mother prays for safe return of daughter

A DISTRAUGHT mother was praying last night for the safe return of her 11-year-old daughter who has been missing for more than 48 hours.

The disappearance of 11-year-old Catherine O'Driscoll from her home at a Traveller campsite near Crookstown in Co Cork on Friday night has baffled her family and locals in the rural community, just miles from Béal na Bláth where Michael Collins was shot at in 1922.

The alarm was raised in the early hours of Saturday morning but searches helped by the garda helicopter and sniffer dogs have failed to shed light on her whereabouts.