'They were a lovely family. This is very shocking'

THE residents of a rural idyll near Bantry, County Cork, were last night struggling to come to terms with the horrific drowning yesterday of a mother in her thirties and her three-year-old daughter.

Orla O'Driscoll of Derryduv, Coomhola, Bantry, and daughter Muire died after their vehicle was swept into a river near their home.

The family had been returning from a children's party when tragedy struck on a ford at the entrance to their sheep farm at Derryduv, six miles from Bantry.