'We keep pinching ourselves!' Kilkenny couple pick up €500,000 EuroMillions Plus win

A Kilkenny couple who won the EuroMillions Plus top prize of €500,000 on Friday, June 17 have arrived at Lotto HQ to collect their prize.

Celebrating at Lotto HQ, the couple told how a quiet Friday night in turned into a life-changing event in the matter of seconds after the EuroMillions draw results came through on their phone. They purchased their ticket online. 

“Even still, we keep pinching ourselves because it doesn’t feel real! We had planned on having a quiet weekend but that all changed on the night of the draw when I get an email to my phone to tell me that I was a winner,” said the Kilkenny winner.

"It’s the email that most people get when you play online, and you’d usually expect to see that you’ve won a fiver or a tenner. Once I’d opened it – there were a lot of zeros and we actually had to take a pen and paper to write the amount down to make sure we knew what we’d actually won. The quiet night in fell by the wayside within five minutes as we were frantically jumping around the house all night. It was a night that we won’t forget for the rest of our lives.

The Kilkenny couple will start to make plans for their winnings but stated that they will take some time out before making any big spending plans.

“We won’t be rushing into anything straight away but there are a lot of things we want to do such as paying off our mortgage and paying off another few bills. Once we get ourselves sorted, we’ll look at helping out some family and friends too. It’s a lovely amount to win and we’ll enjoy sharing it with those closest to us,” they added.

The National Lottery winners’ room in Dublin city centre was a hive of activity on Wednesday as three separate winners from Kilkenny, Limerick and Offaly picked up a combined €2 million in prizes which they won in recent EuroMillions and Lotto draws.

The biggest winners of the day were a jubilant work syndicate from Limerick City who scooped a €1 million cheque after they won the Lotto Plus 1 top prize on Saturday, June 18.

The syndicate who bought their winning ticket at the SuperValu store in Castletroy in Limerick city took the day off work to travel to Dublin to collect their massive €1 million Lotto pay-out. The syndicate who wish to keep their win private admitted that their stroke of good fortune only came about due to a newly formed syndicate:

Another player to claim a EuroMillions prize worth €500,000 was a player from Offaly who won the EuroMillions Plus top prize on Friday, June 10. The winner who wished to keep their win private purchased their winning Quick Pick ticket at Scally’s Centra store in Tullamore, Offaly.

Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on all National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes in the areas of sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage, and the Irish Language. In total more than €6 Billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 34 years ago. In 2021 alone, €289 million was raised for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland. 

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