Gardaí in Donegal are searching for an armed gang that tied up a young woman and her boyfriend when they burst into her parents' home.
Pauline McNulty and her boyfriend, Raymond Gallagher, were bound with masking tape and forced to lie face down by three men on Sunday night in the house two miles from Ballyshannon on the road to Belleek, Co Fermanagh.
The raiders held a sawn-off shotgun to Ms McNulty's head and demanded to know where her businessman father kept his money. A family friend said: "They said they would blow her brains out."
Her parents were visiting relatives when the gang burst into the house at about 8.30pm on Sunday. They ripped out the phone and took the couple's mobile phones after ransacking the house and failing to find any cash. As the raiders left, one warned the woman: "Tell your father he had better have some money when we call again."
Her father, Jim Owens, owns a car sales business in Donegal town.
The alarm was raised after Mr Gallagher worked loose his bonds.
Gardaí believe the men escaped across the Border.
House-to-house inquiries were under way yesterday to establish if neighbours spotted anything unusual.
Garda Sgt Liam Gillespie said: "The family are in a state of shock. They went through a very traumatic incident."
He appealed to people who saw anything unusual on the Belleek-Ballyshannon road on Sunday evening to contact them.