The convicted drug smuggler Michaella McCollum has arrived back in Ireland after being released from prison in Peru.

McCollum, 23, flew into Dublin airport on Sunday morning, where she was reunited with her family. She left Peru on Saturday night on a flight to London.

McCollum, from Dungannon, County Tyrone, and Melissa Reid, 22, from Lenzie, were arrested in August 2013 at Lima airport after they were found with 11kg (24lbs) of cocaine worth £1.5m hidden in packets of food.

The pair had spent the summer working in bars, clubs and hotels in Ibiza before going to Peru, and were travelling back to Spain when they were stopped and searched.

McCollum and Reid initially claimed that they had been threatened by gangsters in Spain who said that their families in Northern Ireland and Scotland would be targeted if they did not agree to be drug mules. They later admitted responsibility and pleaded guilty in the hope of being given a more lenient sentence.

The women faced serving six years and eight months in prison, after their plea bargain averted the prospect of a maximum sentence of 15 years.

McCollum and Reid had been in Virgen de Fatima prison in Lima, but were moved to Ancon 2 prison in May 2014, where McCollum was reportedly placed in a cell with poor sanitation facilities along with 30 other inmates.

She was freed at the end of March following legislation on early prison release that came into effect in Peru last year. She had served two years and three months. McCollum was required to stay in Peru awaiting a hearing to decide when she could return home.

Reid was also released under a similar scheme and returned to her family home in in Scotland, in June.

Since her release, McCollum, a former nightclub dancer and hostess, had been carrying out court-imposed voluntary work in Lima under the leadership of the former Catholic priest Sean Walsh, who is a member of the Columban Fathers mission.

She had been seen at nightclubs and restaurants in Lima with Kaouthar Essafi, a cocaine smuggler she befriended in prison. In a post on Essafi’s Facebook page in June, the pair rejected criticism of their lifestyle.

“We spend most of our time in the gym. Eating healthy food and making the best of it. After five days of merciless workouts, we relax on Friday or Saturday in one of the ‘luxurious’ lounges of Miraflores, where we spend €20 to €30 (£17 to £26) for both of us. This is Peru, where the standard of living is a fraction of what Europeans are used to. Things should therefore be seen in perspective,” they wrote.

While the specifics of her deportation were unclear, McCollum was expected to see out the terms of her parole in the UK.

Speaking to the Irish broadcaster RTÉ in June, McCollum said: “I have forgotten the things that everybody takes for granted in life.” If she had successfully carried the cocaine to Spain, she said, she “probably would have had a lot of blood” on her hands.

McCollum added: “I potentially could have filled Europe with a lot of drugs. I could potentially have killed a lot of people, not directly, but I could have caused a lot of harm to people. I made a decision in a moment of madness. I am not a bad person, I want to demonstrate that I’m a good person.”