'It was like her body went into shock' - Donegal's €100,000 winners' delight

National Lottery players in Donegal have gotten their year off to a memorable start after claiming life-changing cheques at Lottery HQ this week.

This week, two players from Donegal travelled to claim their €100,000 prizes, which they won in the New Year's Eve Millionaire Raffle draw. Although neither has been publicly named, the winning parties spoke of their joy.

One winner received their winning ticket as a gift from a family member, purchased from The Bookmark, Letterkenny Shopping Centre, Letterkenny.

This syndicate of two discovered their incredible fortune shortly after the New Year's Eve draw, thanks to a nudge from a family member during a festive family gathering.

"All our families were together to ring in the New Year, and it wasn't until 11pm that night when someone insisted we check our raffle numbers,” they said. “They had already checked them and knew we had won! It took me ages to find the winning codes, we were taking so long that they finally had to tell us we had won €100,000. The house exploded with cheers, screams, jumps, and hugs – it was an unforgettable celebration, a New Year's Eve we'll never forget!

This Donegal duo have no immediate plans to spend their winnings but couldn't have asked for a better start to 2025.

On the other hand, the second Donegal winner, who purchased their ticket from Columba Diver, Main Street, Ardara, as a last-minute Christmas gift from a husband to his wife, turned out to be the best present ever!

“My husband dashed to the shops on Christmas Eve, thinking he needed to grab something small to go with my present. A couple of days later, during a family dinner, we joked that we might be sitting on a fortune with the ticket.”

Her husband chimed in: “I saw the Lottery announced the winning locations of the big prizes and realised that a winning ticket was sold in the exact store where I bought ours. I jokingly sent her a message saying it could be hers – and to our total surprise, it was our raffle number! She couldn’t stop shaking when she realised. It was like her body went into shock”.

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To keep their precious ticket safe before heading to HQ, the couple devised a plan. They planted decoy tickets around the house, while the real winning ticket was hidden in a book titled Some Mother’s Son. The pair have no intentions on how they plan on spending their incredible prize but are sure to treat themselves in the near future.

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 €6.5 billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 37 years ago. In 2023 alone, €227.9 million was raised for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland.