Convicted drugs mule Michaella McCollum Connolly has found God and will start her new life quietly - living with a 73-year-old Catholic priest in his modest city-centre apartment, MailOnline has learned.

McCollum Connolly - one half of the 'Peru Two' who along with Scot Melissa Reid was jailed for trying to smuggle £1.5 million of cocaine from Peru to Spain – will live full-time with Father Sean Walsh and work for his church from his tiny home office.

MailOnline has learned exclusive details of the 23-year-old’s fresh start since she was released from prison after serving two years and three months of a six year, eight month sentence at a tough Peruvian prison.

Convicted drugs mule Michaella McCollum Connolly will start her new life living in the apartment of Catholic priest Father Sean Walsh, in Lima, Peru (pictured above)

McCollum Connolly has been released on parole, after being jailed with Melissa Reid for trying to smuggle £1.5 million of cocaine from Peru to Spain

The former drug mule, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, will stay at the three-bedroom apartment in Miraflores, Lima, for the foreseeable future while she sees out up to six years on parole in the country.

Father Walsh will oversee McCollum Connolly’s progression in the real world.

She will carry out administrative and clerical duties for the priest from his fifth floor apartment and work on the church’s magazine, ‘New Hope’, setting templates and carrying out photographic work.

Included in one of the latest issues of the low budget ‘New Hope’ is an article about how marijuana use can affect teenage intelligence and another about a pastor who was addicted to pornography who now counsels men and women with the same problem.

Michaella did her time with dignity, took her lumps and now she’s ready to start life fresh. Father Walsh

Father Walsh will also encourage McCollum Connolly to volunteer for other church groups, including working with Father Cathal Gallagher, a Columban priest in Peru, helping people who are HIV-positive or have Aids.

McCollum Connolly will work a 9-5 eight hour day, Monday to Friday, and will be paid a small wage as well as food and board.

And the priest said he’s ‘excited’ to work alongside the attractive parolee.

‘The Lord blessed her with good looks,’ he joked.

‘Michaella did her time with dignity, took her lumps and now she’s ready to start life fresh.

‘I’m excited about the possibility of working with her.

‘Michaella is an intelligent and gifted young lady, she just did something dumb, now she can get on with the rest of her life.

‘She will be on parole for another 50 months, but she can apply to leave Peru and go back to Ireland.

‘My apartment will be her residence, this is going to be her office and her room’s over there.

Father Walsh will oversee McCollum Connolly's transition back into the real world, and she will stay in his apartment and carry out administrative and clerical duties for him

McCollum Connolly will work a 9-5 eight hour day, Monday to Friday, and will be paid a small wage as well as food and board in Father Walsh's apartment

McCollum Connolly will be staying in Father Walsh's three-bedroom apartment for the foreseeable future, as she still has to serve up to six years' parole in Peru

The apartment in on the fifth floor of a block in the bustling neighbourhood of Miraflores, in the Peruvian capital

‘She’s welcome to stay here and work here as long as she likes.’

The change of pace is a world away from the glamorous makeover and stay at a luxury hotel that McCollum Connolly enjoyed while filming an interview with Irish TV station RTE over the weekend.

The convicted criminal looked more like an X-Factor finalist than the frightened young woman who was caught at Lima Airport in 2013 with 24lbs of cocaine hidden inside food packets.

The 'hair donut' do had been replaced with long blonde locks, and she wore a smart white blazer over ripped black jeans and a black top, as well as bright red lipstick and matching manicure.

McCollum Connolly, who often broke into a smile, came under fire after the TV appearance, widely slated for overhauling her image and not sounding sorry enough.

I’m not sure she was a staunch Catholic before I met her, but I really think she did come to the Lord (in prison), at least in her conversations with me, she indicated that. Father Walsh

But her brush with celebrity and taste of the glamorous will be short-lived, for she is due to move in soon with Father Walsh – who has spent 37 years with the church.

Before then she is spending precious time with family members at a hotel in Lima.

The priest and prison missionary has set aside a bedroom in his modest home for his new guest.

The small room, shown to MailOnline, is decorated in plain white, has a double bed with a floral print cover, a side table and lamp, desk and a vanity dresser with a large mirror – basic but far more comfortable than her prison quarters.

The only ornament on display is a hand-painted Inca joss stick holder on the dresser.

The apartment is filled with quaint religious artwork and scriptures – some from Father Walsh's time working in Africa – and family photos.

The property sits on the fifth floor of a dated high-rise apartment block above a Peruvian restaurant and across from Kennedy Park in a bustling area of Lima.

McCollum Connolly was widely criticised following an interview with Irish TV station over the weekend, in which she showed off a dramatic post-prison makeover

Northern Irish Michaella McCollum Connolly and Melissa Reid (pictured together) from Scotland were jailed for six years and eight months in 2013 after they were caught with cocaine worth £1.5million hidden in their luggage at Lima Airport

With the temperature in the city reaching 27 degrees on Monday, the loud shrill of car horns and workmen’s machinery flooded in through the large open window of Father Walsh’s office.

Father Walsh believes his young guest has found God and that will be her focus.

‘I’m not sure she was a staunch Catholic before I met her, but I really think she did come to the Lord (in prison), at least in her conversations with me, she indicated that.’

She’s bright, she can learn a lot of different things and her heart is in the right place. Father Walsh

Father Walsh – who has worked closely with the Peruvian prison ministry for four decades helping foreign inmates - became involved with McCollum Connolly and Reid after being asked to by the Irish Consul.

And for the past two years he has been visiting them in jail up to three times a week.

‘Michaella’s parole was granted, her first time requesting it, her judge is a lady judge and a female prosecutor, tough as nails but fair, they did everything by the book.

‘The Peruvian authorities want to see this happen (parole).

‘Even in Peru they don’t want to see people punished gratuitously forever.’

Walsh says he first came to Peru from the United States as a missionary, but after witnessing homeless parolees on the streets in Lima he decided to make counseling foreign inmates in Peru his full-time job.

‘I’ve been doing this for a number of foreign inmates, theoretically there’s 1,500 foreign parolees on the streets living in Peru,’ he said.

‘They can be rescued and become good productive citizens.

The priest and prison missionary Father Sean Walsh has set aside a bedroom in his modest home for his new guest

Father Walsh – who has worked closely with the Peruvian prison ministry for four decades helping foreign inmates - became involved with McCollum Connolly and Reid after being asked to by the Irish Consul

Decorations inside the apartment of Father Walsh, where drug mule Michaella McCollum Connolly will be living and working for him as part of her parole

A copy of the Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) magazine published by Father Walsh. McCollum Connolly will help him with the low-budget magazine, by setting templates and carrying out photographic work

The Irish American priest arrived in Peru as a missionary before he decided to make counseling foreign inmates in Peru his full-time job, after seeing homeless parolees on the streets of Lima

‘They need to know that they have hope and a future, and I think that's the church's role more than the government's.’

Father Walsh said McCollum Connolly - who he now sees as a ‘granddaughter’ - isn’t confined by law to his apartment.

‘Eventually, if she chooses to change residence or change employment, she can do what she likes,’ he said.

‘She’s entitled to do that, the only condition being she must so advise the (prison) board and the parole officer.

‘She’s spending time with family now, but the sooner she starts the better as far as I’m concerned.’

Father Walsh said McCollum Connolly had done a lot of ‘soul-searching’ while locked up.

The prison’s here, they might not be the world’s worst, but they are still not a walk in the park. Father Walsh

‘The prison’s here, they might not be the world’s worst, but they are still not a walk in the park,’ he explained

‘The girls were held in dormitories which had 30 beds, it was like being in a boarding school.’

He said that McCollum Connolly had avoided trouble with other inmates and kept her head down, making the most of educational programs.

‘She never complained to me,’ he said.

He said she learnt Spanish and even took a hair-dressing course.

‘Her Spanish is fluent and she likes to tease me and calls me in Spanish, it takes me a second to recognize her voice.

‘I think the Spanish went in her favor at the parole hearing, most foreign prisoners do not learn Spanish. She handled herself abundantly well.

‘She’s bright, she can learn a lot of different things and her heart is in the right place.’

Father Walsh says that the Peruvian government has laid down strict sentences for foreigners caught trafficking drugs, but he believes offenders should be given some clemency.

He says that non-Spanish speaking foreigners stuck in Peru on parole without identification cards or work visas, face a bureaucratic nightmare that makes living any kind of a normal life extremely difficult.

Gaining permission to leave the country can also take many years.

Irish-born Michaella McCollum, handcuffed, arrives for a court hearing, in Lima, Peru, in December 2013. She has now been released on parole but will still have to stay in Peru for up to six years

Although currently spending time with her family, McCollum Connolly will be moving into Father Walsh's flat soon to start her new life

He added that McCollum Connolly is one of the fortunate ones but said she will want to work hard to pay her dues.

‘Michaella will probably want to reimburse her family for the horrific legal fees they have been paying for these last two years,’ he explained.

‘What I can pay her is not going to make her a million, it’s more of a volunteer stipend.

‘Eventually she may find different employment.’

After her release on Thursday McCollum Connolly gave her first interview and said she feels like she'll wake up 'back in the nightmare' of prison despite her freedom.

She told RTE: ‘This feels like a dream, it feels like I’m going to wake up back in jail, back in the nightmare.