It was all smiles in National Lottery offices today when the winners of last Saturday’s Lotto jackpot of €5,146,800 collected their big prize.
The winning married couple, who live in the locality, are from Co. Donegal and purchased their lucky ticket in Moore’s Costcutters store in Ballybofey on Saturday, the day of the draw.
It was a €4 ticket, and the lucky wife, who purchased the ticket in Costcutters, used the numbers she’s been playing for a long time, made up of family birthdays.
This win is the second highest Lotto jackpot win in Donegal. The biggest jackpot was on 25 January 2012 when the jackpot was €5.48M and the winners were from Derry. The lucky ticket on that occasion was purchased in the Top Shop in Killea, Donegal.
Today’s ‘delighted’ couple, who do not wish their win to be public, did not get too excited when they realised their good fortune on Saturday last.
“I was watching the draw on Saturday night and I had the ticket in my hand,” said the lucky wife.
“After the draw, I asked my husband to check the numbers but as he hadn’t seen the draw, he didn’t know what numbers won!
“I thought I had to have the bonus ball to win the jackpot, so I checked the numbers on Aertel later on that night and then I saw in the results that I had the winning ticket. The two of us were a bit disbelieving about it all, but we went to bed at the normal time, told no one, and slept soundly all night,” smiled the lucky lady.
She continued: “Next day, at Mass in Stranorlar, everyone was speculating about who had won the Lotto. I joined in the speculation, but didn’t tell a soul. Sunday was spent the same way it always is: I cooked our dinner and we relaxed in the afternoon. We didn’t want to come down to Dublin on Monday to collect so we waited until today but it didn’t bother us at all.”
The couple had plans for spending their win, which included some unusual thoughts.
“We’d like to give some donations to charities which do good work. Included in that group will be the Simon Community in Letterkenny; the Capuchin Fathers and Fr. Peter McVerry’s charity’.
“For myself, I’d love to buy a Camper Van and travel around a bit. We’ve only been out of the country once before. But I’d need to take driving lessons before I buy the van, because I’ve never driven anything in my life!’ laughed the lucky Donegal woman as she finished her glass of champagne in National Lottery offices.