WOMEN in the Stranorlar
area who don't drive a car are under suspicion as
the winners of the €5.1 million lottery jackpot
drawn on April 6.
A lucky married couple collected their mega-winnings
at Lottery HQ last week with the wife making the
revelation: "I'd need to take driving lessons before
I buy the (camper) van, because I’ve never driven
anything in my life!"
Now the people of the town are trying to figure out
who does and doesn't drive in the locality.
The woman purchased the couple's lucky ticket in
Moore’s Costcutters store in Ballybofey on the day
of the draw. It was a €4 ticket using the numbers
she’s played for a long time, made up of family
birthdays.
The win is the second highest Lotto jackpot win for
Co Donegal. The biggest jackpot was on 25 January
2012 when the jackpot was €5,482,894. The winners
who bought their ticket in Killea were from Derry.
The most recent lucky couple, who declined
publicity, did not get over 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 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," she said.
"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 (Thursday) but it didn’t bother us at
all." The big-hearted couple now want to give some
of their winnings to charity.
"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," she added. |
