By Ryan O'Sullivan-
New Years Day £115m euro lottery winner in the EuroMillions lottery have vowed to share their new mega fortune with 450 people. The pair, who are now the fourth biggest lottery winners in UK history were on top of the world at sa press conference yesterday.
Patrick and Frances Connolly from Northern Ireland, are very different from most lottery winners, but do share a few things in common with a few jackpot winners of old. They have a big heart. The pair revealed their plans yesterday to give most of their new-found fortune away to at least 50 lucky mystery recipients.
Mrs Connolly,A 52 year old teacher revealed her tough decision in picking which of her friends to choose to bless.
“I’m going to cry myself to sleep that I can’t help everybody, that will be really tough,” she said, adding that it would be “heartbreaking” to receive letters from members of the public begging for money. The couple, from Co Armagh, appeared at a news conference at the luxury Culloden Hotel in Co Down on Friday after becoming the fourth biggest UK lottery winners in history.
“All the time we’ve been doing the National Lottery I don’t think we’ve got three tenners,” she said.
“The only thing I ever won was a guess the number of sweets in the jar, and four other people did the same thing. We always said if we ever did win, £4 million or something, there would be four million other winners and we’d get £1.
“We were chuffed to bits.
The businessman bought the lucky dip ticket at lunchtime that day and checked multiple websites to cross-reference the numbers, unsure whether it was all genuine.
The couple have since drawn up a list of around 50 people who they plan to share the fortune with, including their three daughters and grandchildren.
Mrs Connolly, 52, said: “This is a massive sum of money and we want it to have a huge impact on the lives of other people we know and love as well as on our future too.” They plan a holiday in in Mauritius and car lover Mr Connolly wants to attend the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix.
Mr Connolly said plans for the couple to relocate to England following a job offer in Croydon were now “up in the air”.
Asked if they had thought about their personal security, Mrs Connolly joked: “I’ve never met anyone I couldn’t take down myself!
2019 has started brilliantly for this couple as far as finances are concerned, but there are 50 others who are about to benefit from a large slice of her money.