Who was Annie McCarrick and what was the Garda breakthrough?

Extra.ie​

a day ago

As a man is arrested and a house and garden search gets underway in Clondalkin today, we ask 'Who was Annie McCarrick and what has led to this point?'
Among the many women who have gone missing in this country over the past 40 years or so, one name is always remembered as one of the first to disappear, and that is American student Annie McCarrick.
Tall, with striking good looks and long curly hair, Annie's image was burned into our minds with photos of her across every newspaper in the land back in 1993 when she was first reported missing. Annie McCarrick. Pic: Collins Photos
On Friday, March 26 that year, the 27-year-old from Long Island, New York, left her apartment in Sandymount, in south Dublin, to go walking in County Wicklow. She was last seen in a café in Enniskerry but seemingly vanished without a trace shortly afterwards.
Numerous searches by gardaí have yielded no results in the intervening years.
But what do we know about this missing woman, and how can it help us to understand what she was doing here in Ireland at the time of her disappearance?
Annie Bridget McCarrick was born on March 21st, 1966, the only child of her parents John and Nancy from Long Island in New York.
She had visited Ireland on a school trip in the 1980s and fell in love with the country, returning later to study at St Patrick's College in Drumcondra and St Patrick's College Maynooth before going home to the United States to further her studies at New York's Stony Brook University in 1991. Pic: An Garda Síochána
Her love for Ireland never left her though and she returned to live here full-time in January 1993, sharing a rented house in Sandymount with two friends.
She held down two jobs at restaurants in Dublin city and was making plans to show her mother around her adopted home town shortly before her disappearance.
Mom Nancy was due to arrive on March 30th, and Annie was said to have been excited for her visit.
It's known Annie enjoyed the St. Patrick's Day parade with her friends that year before popping into one of the cafes where she worked to collect her wages. Pic: Collins Dublin
She had planned to go walking in the Wicklow area and had invited a friend to join her but the friend declined, so it's believed she headed off on the bus to Enniskerry on her own, March 26th 1993 at around 3.30pm. She was never seen again.
Since then, Annie's parents have been heavily involved in the search for their only child and have never given up hope of finding her.
Gardai say her family have been notified of today's developments and will be kept informed of any progress in the Garda investigation into Annies disappearance.
In March of this year, Extra.ie revealed that Gardai had made a major breakthrough in the case and that an arrest was imminent.
The news came just days after gardaí upgraded their inquiries to a murder investigation and coincided with the 30th anniversary of Annie's disappearance.
A source revealed to Extra.ie that, despite a number of unconfirmed sightings in Enniskerry village and the nearby Johnnie Fox's pub, Gardai were considering the possibility that Annie may have never been there at all. Annie was believed to have been in possession of a large brown leather bag when she disappeared. Pic: Photocall Ireland
In fact, the source said that officers were instead focusing their attention on a large brown leather bag which Annie was believed to have been in possession of when she disappeared.
Today, June 12, Gardai confirmed that a man in his 60s has been arrested on suspicion of Annie's murder while a property in Clondalkin is also being searched.