Millionaire mammy

THE grandmother who won €5.1 million in last weekend’s Lotto draw wants to wait for her son, Anthony, to come home from Australia before she picks up her cheque from the National Lottery headquarters, so he can be with her for the momentous occasion.

Speaking at her terraced home in Moneymore, Drogheda, Co Louth, yesterday, Lily Gallagher, 60, fought back the tears when she spoke about how Anthony, 31, a qualified plumber, had to emigrate earlier this year because he could not get work in Ireland.

Lily also believes a bracelet bought for her by one of her three grandchildren just hours before Saturday night’s draw brought her luck.

“My grandson came in to me on Saturday morning,” she said.

“I was just sitting here having a cup of tea. I was feeling down and he came in and said to me: ‘Granny, I’m after buying you a lucky bracelet in the market for €2.’

“I definitely think it was a lucky bracelet and I keep saying it to him.”

Her good news spread quickly over the internet and when she talked to Anthony via Skype he told her how someone had come up to him on the street in Perth on Sunday and said: “I hear your mammy is a millionaire.”

Lily says that if it’s possible, she wants to wait for Anthony to fly home to be with her when she collects her cheque from Lotto headquarters.

“I want to wait and see can he get back, but if he can’t I will go over to him,” she said. “He had to leave the country in May and it nearly broke my heart.”

Anthony was laid off by one of the largest plumbing companies in Co Louth last year and, in May, after more than a year out of work and with a mortgage to pay, he left for Australia with his girlfriend.

Lily says she will use her winnings to clear Anthony’s mortgage and buy her own home and that of her daughter, Melissa, who lives down the road from her with her three children.

On Saturday night, she rang Melissa to double-check her Lotto numbers after she realised she had all six.

“Melissa said that when I rang I was ever so calm. I said: ‘Come up here quick, I think I have six numbers in the Lotto.’ She came up and checked it and then my sister came over and we checked it too and it was like: ‘Yeah, I think you have six numbers in the Lotto.’ That’s just the way it happened.”

She decided to go public after realising “sure everyone knows who I am anyway and where I live”.