At the time of Deirdre’s disappearance the 18 year old was studying to become a teacher at Strawberry Hill College in London. By the summer of 1998 Deirdre had completed her first year of college and had returned home to Ireland for the summer holidays to live at her parents’ house.

On the morning of Tuesday the 28th of July 1998, after completing some household chores, at roughly 10am Deirdre left her parents’ home to visit the town of Newbridge Co. Kildare some twenty miles south of Dublin City. The journey would take Deirdre roughly thirty minutes on foot, but she planned to stop by her Grandmother’s shop whilst on the way to Newbridge. After visiting her Grandmother Deirdre arrived at the A.I.B Bank on Main Street Newbridge at roughly 2:20pm to collect a bank draft.  Upon collecting the bank draft Deirdre headed to a nearby post office and sent the bank draft to London to pay for her second year in college.

By 3pm Deirdre had completed her errand and decided to walk home. Deirdre passed by one of her friends on her way home and spoke briefly to them. Just before 3:30pm Deirdre had almost completed her walk home along the country road next to the river Liffey, this was confirmed as some three hundred yards from her home on the Barretstown road Deirdre exchanged greetings with a neighbour. At 3:30pm another neighbour saw Deirdre standing on a grass verge across from her home. This sadly was to be the last confirmed sighting of Deirdre. Shockingly Deirdre seemed to vanish without a trace in the short distance between the grass verge and her parents’ home.

Despite the Barretstown road being considered a country road, it is also an extremely busy road regarding traffic particularly at the time of day Deirdre vanished, unfortunately no motorists has ever came forward to the Gardi with information pertaining to a possible abduction. Deirdre was carrying a distinctive bag with a large logo bearing the letters CAT, walking along a busy road in broad daylight, in the area she grew up in and despite all this Deirdre seemed to disappear into thin air.

Despite an extensive Garda search and investigation tragically no trace of Deirdre Jacob has ever been found.