There will be no holiday in rural Co Donegal this year for the distressed McCann family.

As the family continue to battle to keep the public focus on finding their missing daughter, Madeleine, the little girl's grandmother has said it may be too painful for the missing girl's parents to return to a Donegal village where they all spent a happy Easter holiday last year - just weeks before the family's ill-fated Portuguese holiday.

Eileen McCann, who owns Peoples Bar in the tiny village of St Johnston, close to the border with Co Londonderry, said that while she may visit Ireland next month, her son Gerry and his wife Kate will not be returning for the foreseeable future.

She said it could be too painful for the couple to revisit the area, where they had a great time in 2007 not knowing that little Maddy (4) was to be snatched from a holiday apartment in the Algarve last May.

On their annual trip to the Irish county last year, Kate and Gerry took Madeleine and their twins Sean and Amelie to St Johnston to see the pub where Gerry's father John was born.

A spokeswoman for the Find Madeleine Campaign said that Kate and Gerry McCann will not be making any firm plans while they are still being treated as "arguidos" - or suspects - by Portuguese police.

The six-month deadline, at the end of which they could be either charged or exonerated, is to expire shortly.

"The situation has been the same for the last few weeks and Kate and Gerry still have 'arguido' status," she said.

"We are just waiting to hear what will happen next and until we do nothing can be confirmed."

The McCanns family originally left Donegal in 1967, and Maddy's father Gerry was born later in England, but the family still have relatives and friends in the county.

(BMcC)