What happened to the biggest Irish Lottery Winners?
Since its inception in 1998 the Irish Lotto has been giving away prizes. Initially there was a weekly lotto draw on Saturdays and as the draw increased in popularity it was extended to a twice weekly draw, with the addition of the midweek lottery.
The possibilities of winning a life-changing amount of money was further dangled in front of Irish lottery players with the introduction of the Euro millions lottery in 2004.
Given the enormous prize money on offer this newer pan European game produced some of the biggest lotto winners in Ireland.
Whilst there have been many individuals, families and consortium's that have won tidy sums of money on the Irish lotto, particularly when they have been jackpot rollovers by far the biggest winners have come from the EuroMillions lottery. We are going to take a look at some of the biggest Irish lottery winners and find out what happened to them after they hit the jackpot.
5.Stakelums Hardware store syndicate from Co Tipperary
It seems some shops or supermarkets have the knack of selling winning tickets - the Eason store in the Thurles Shopping Centre in Co.Tipperary had a mere eight months earlier sold a €7.5 million Lotto winner, but this time they were the sellers on a ticket to a 32 member syndicate who won 17 million. They were well organised with weekly deductions made from their pay cheques so as to avoid any disagreements. The winners travelled to Dublin together by bus to collect their share of the spoils with each of the group set to receive a little over half a million each.
4.Quarry Workers from Carlow
Another syndicate and another large win. This time the lucky recipients were a group of work colleagues from outside Dublin working at a quarry in Co. Carlow. The fifteen strong group workers past and present living at Dan Morrissey Irl Ltd, a company that is involved in quarrying and concrete production scooped a jackpot of 18.9 million. This wasn't the first time a syndicate from the same company had won a lottery prize, as back in 2016 another group won a more modest €256,000, with both tickets having been purchased at the same supermarket. The other difference was, that this time around the HR department at the quarry were tasked with filling a number of vacancies given the size of the win.
3. The Dublin Bus Drivers syndicate
It is always nice to her when a group of lottery players share a large win, and none more so than the syndicate of 22 Dublin Bus drivers who scooped 23.8 million in 2016.The group were seen arriving to Lottery Headquarters in Dublin's Abbey Street to collect their winnings and remarkably continued to pay into the lotto fund each week in addition to continuing with their employment.
The Limerick mother of 6 became a household name in Ireland when she scooped the first Euro Millions jackpot in Ireland back in 2005. It was an enormous sum of money and the whole country was talking about it. The lucky winner, a former cleaning lady, bought herself a Victorian country pile in 2012 in the West of Ireland and that wasn't her only dabble in the property market as she is said to have purchased houses for each of her children as well as investing in her own property company that is believed to have commercial property interests.
1. Frances and Patrick Connolly: £115 Million
In 2019, on New Years Day no less, a couple from Northern Ireland discovered they had won any eye watering £115 million in what turned out to be the biggest ever win in Northern Ireland. The couple who gave interviews to various media outlets revealed that it was their intention to share much of their winnings with a list of friends and family totally around 50 people.