Message in a bottle evolves into Skype chat

Oisin Millea, the boy who found a message in a bottle yesterday contacted the women who launched it into the sea eight years ago — and he may meet them in person next year after Tourism Ireland offered to fly them to Ireland for The Gathering.

Oisin, 9, from Passage East in Co Waterford, found the two-litre plastic 7Up bottle on a beach last week the day after flooding caused by high tides washed numerous items inland.

Inside the bottle was a note, wrapped in a hair bobbin, written in French by two French-Canadian schoolgirls, Claudia and Charlaine, then aged 12.