Life changing

Birthday gift for mum leads to EuroMillions win for lucky lady

A lucky lady from Dungiven in Northern Ireland scooped a massive £285,288.60 in the EuroMillions draw on 19th December 2017 – and has Mum to thank for it.

Roisin McNicholl was out buying a birthday gift for her mum when she picked up a EuroMillions Lucky Dip. In the draw she matched five main numbers and one Lucky Star number to win the life changing sum.

Housewife Roisin, 44, wasn’t planning on buying a ticket but saw the big draw advertised when out shopping for her mum. “It was actually my mum’s seventy-third birthday on 19th December so my daughter Ciara and I went to Coleraine to buy her a new phone for her birthday,”

“There was a huge EuroMillions jackpot on offer that night so once we had finished our shopping, Ciara bought a couple of lines for the big draw and I bought a Lucky Dip – on top of my usual numbers that I had already done earlier. That turned out to be the lucky ticket.

“So, had we not gone to Coleraine to buy a birthday present for Mum, I would never have bought the winning ticket.”

A ‘real tizzy’

Roisin, who lives with husband Martin and children Ciara, 22, and Oisin, 20, discovered her win on her way to visit her mum. “We were on our way to deliver our birthday present to Mum. Ciara was driving so I checked the EuroMillions numbers on my National Lottery phone app. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw the five main numbers matching one by one, and then a Lucky Star as well.

“I felt excited and a bit sick at the same time and told Ciara to pull the car over to the side of the road. ‘Please don’t do this to me’ she said and I gave the ticket to her boyfriend Kevin to check for me as I was in a real tizzy. He had a look and I could see the colour drain from his face. Then, white as a sheet, he said I was right and that the numbers were a match.

“The three of us sat in the car in total disbelief for a while and I phoned my husband Martin who was working in England to tell him the news. He didn’t believe me at first but it slowly sank in.”

Tears of joy

Roisin continued, “Once we had calmed down a bit, we continued our journey to break the news to my Mum and Brother. When we got there, I said ‘Happy birthday Mum, I’ve just won the Lottery’. Nobody believed me until they saw the ticket and it wasn’t long until we were all crying… tears of joy of course! So her birthday turned into a double celebration that night.

“After that, it was ages before I could sleep again with all the excitement. Every time I closed my eyes, I couldn’t help thinking about what had just happened. I still couldn’t believe it,”

Big Apple

Husband Martin, a self-employed joiner, flew back from England two days after the draw to join the celebrations. The couple will now celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary in July this year with a trip to New York to visit Roisin’s sister and cousins. The win will also go towards paying off the mortgage and carrying out some work around the house.

Roisin plays EuroMillions regularly and Lotto ‘when the jackpot starts to rise’, as well as ‘the occasional scratchcard’. In 2012, she won almost two thousand pounds in a Lotto draw but she never dreamt of winning a prize on the scale of what she has just won.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Roisin. “I never thought we would win something like this – I suppose no-one thinks they will but it goes to show that it really can happen to anyone. It really is a life-changing experience and we are very grateful.”

9th January 2018

The National Lottery has been changing the lives of winners and supporting good causes across the UK since 1994. In that time, there have been more than 7,000 new millionaires created and by playing The National Lottery you raise over £4 million for Good Causes every dayΔ.

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