Lucky charms score big for EuroMillions jackpot winner
The traditional symbols of luck worked their magic for Limerick woman Dolores McNamara on Friday night when she checked her lotto ticket and discovered she had won e115 million to become the biggest ever EuroMillions jackpot.
It also emerged the mother of six survived the Kusadasi bomb blast just over two weeks ago.
Ms McNamara and her bricklayer husband, Adrian, who were on holidays in Kusadasi, were just yards from the scene of the explosion.
The 50-year-old grew up in Garryowen, a tough area in Limerick city, whose rugby club gave the world the term for hoofing the ball in the air and chasing frantically after it.
After emigrating to Blackpool in England, Dolores returned to Limerick in the 1980s and settled down to raise a family of six children with husband, Adrian.
Just two of the children - 13-year-old Lee and 15-year-old Dean - remain in the family home. The eldest son Gary, 26, and the three daughters, Dawn, 28, Kim, 22 and Kevan, 20, have moved out to live in different parts of Limerick city.
“She is a lovely person. She married and she raised a lovely family. That’s all I can say,” said Geraldine Donohoe, who went to school in Limerick with Dolores. “She more than deserved what she got.” But she said that Dolores had been “devastated” by the news of her win.
The McNamara’s small terraced house was deserted on Saturday morning. The only family member still around after a night of raucous celebrations was 13-year-old son Lee.
He cycled around on his bike on the narrow roads outside and met his excited friends, telling them that he’d like to buy a horse and go on holidays with some of the e115 million jackpot.
“I heard the news at 12 o’clock. My mother’s very tired,” he said.
As neighbours milled around the house, there was much joking about the family’s blue Opel car parked in the driveway, with speculation that it would soon be replaced by a Ferrari.
Marie Ryan, a 17-year-old neighbour, said she was delighted for the McNamara family.
“I was at work when I heard it. I was leaping and jumping up and down in the shop,” she said.
Her friend, Aoife McSweeney, 16, said Saturday was the 15th birthday of the McNamaras’ second youngest son, Dean. “It’ll be a birthday to remember,” she said.
Stephen McCarthy, 17, said he got the good news early in the morning when Lee rang him on his mobile phone.
“He said they’d won the Lotto. I didn’t believe him though. And I hung up and he rang back a few minutes later.”
He went to the McNamara house, where a family party was still continuing into the early hours of the morning.
“Everyone was roaring and shouting. They were happy,” he said.
The lottery ticket was bought on Friday evening in the Garryowen Stores, a small convenience shop around a kilometre from the McNamara home.
It’s next to an Italian ‘chipper’ and the Track Bar, where Dolores was drinking with friends.
The shop, which has a sticker advertising the EuroMillions draw on its window, last sold a winning lottery ticket 13 years ago when it was under previous management.
Mary Brosnan, whose husband now owns the store, said the demand for EuroMillions tickets had been slow until May.
That was when the EuroMillions jackpot began the first of its nine rollovers and steadily grew up to €115m.
“We saw more people coming in but sure we never thought it would be won here in Ireland, not to mind the shop winning,” she said.
Quintin Masaw, a 23-year-old Zimbabwean who has been working in the shop for two years, said he believed he might have sold the winning ticket to Dolores.
“If it was sold between 3pm and 9pm on Friday, it might have been me,” he said. But according to a local man, Lawrence Moriarity, the ticket was sold to Dolores by another shop employee, Christopher Lyons.
“There was only two of us there. She was getting her ticket and I was behind her,” he said.
While drinking a pint at the Track Bar, Christopher said it was the third time that day that he had visited the shop to buy a EuroMillions ticket. “I’ll never win it now. It could have been but that’s the way it goes.”
Many of the other drinkers in the pub on Saturday were debating about what should be done with the €115m, with some claiming they would take a cruise around the world with their friends and others saying they would give most of it to local charities.
But then Lawrence Moriarty changed the direction of the debate by recalling how many lottery winners had struggled to enjoy their good fortune.
“It can make you happy or miserable. There’s a lot of tragedies. Your health is your wealth really,” he said.
James Ahern replied: “It’s grand to say that once you haven’t got it.”
Garryowen resident Barry O’Brien, 70, said the win was a boost for the city.
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