Mystery surround Castlebar winners of EuroMillions €29m jackpot

CHAMPAGNE MOMENT National Lottery sales representative Pauric Gillespie sprays champagne in celebration over Umesh Kumar (centre); his wife Rosalia Csemer, co-owners of the XL Store in Garryduff; Store Manager Paulline Brinklow (third from right); former local councillor Johnny Mee (third from left) and other residents of the area, last Tuesday morning. Pic: MacInnes Photography

Anton McNulty

MYSTERY still surrounds the identity of the lucky Castlebar syndicate which collected the massive €29 million cheque after winning the EuroMillions lotto.
Mayo’s latest millionaires bought the winning EuroMillion ticket in Garryduff XL Store, Castlebar on Friday, July 7, and travelled to National Lottery Headquarters in Dublin last week to collect the cheque. The jackpot win was the largest ever lotto prize to be won in the county.
The winners do not wish to go public but in a statement issued by the National Lottery, they said they were still getting used to their new found wealth and have yet to decide what they were to do with their winnings.
“This has come as a huge shock but we are thrilled. This will certainly make life easier for us all and will secure our futures,” said a spokesperson for the syndicate.
“It has been a rollercoaster week with lots of butterflies in our stomachs and lots of different emotions. But we are keeping level heads and we will try to take it all in and we will give it time before we decide what to do with our winnings,” added the spokesperson.
The winning quick pick ticket was purchased from Umesh Kumar’s Garryduff XL Store on Pound Road, Castlebar. The Indian native said last week he could not believe it when he was contacted by the National Lottery to say he had sold the golden ticket.
“We had no idea at all. We are all thrilled here at the news. It is a great boost for the area and we are delighted for the winner whoever it is. It will take a while for this to sink in.”
There were great scenes of excitement around Mr Kumar’s shop on Tuesday morning when news of the big lotto win came through. Former Castlebar town councillor, Johnny Mee, lives within 30 yards of the shop and said the scenes were reminiscent of a sporting win.
“I was a young lad when Mayo last won the All-Ireland in 1951 and I’ve never seen so much excitement around Pound Road and St Bridget’s Cresent. It was one of the best days of my life. There was great fun with champagne swirling at nine in the morning and cars beeping horns. When you hear so much bad news it is great to get good news for a change,” he said.
The Garryduff area is a mainly residential area and while the identity of the winners has not been revealed, Johnny believes they are likely to be local.
“The area is made up of a good mix of old ones like myself and young families as well and is a lovely place to live. While there is a lot of speculation nobody knows who has won but I’d imagine whoever did win it lives within a half a mile radius of the store. The winner was probably picking up a few groceries. All I know is I definitely did not win it but I wish whoever did the best of luck,” he said.
Incredibly this was the second EuroMillions jackpot win for Castlebar, and the 11th EuroMillions jackpot win in Ireland since it began in 2004. In April 2014 a jackpot prize worth a massive €15 million was claimed on a ticket sold in Staunton’s Costcutter Express in Castlebar. On that occasion the winner also did not go public.

What would you do with €29 million?

Following the news that the €29 million EuroMillions jackpot was won in Castlebar, Cory Kilbane went to the county town to ask people what they would do if they won the money?

Carmel Chambers
Newport
“I’d buy a car yeah, anything with four wheels if I was lucky. There’d be a few nice holidays too. I’d love to go see Africa because I find it so interesting and there are so many different nationalities of people there. You have the rich ones down the south and you have Tunisia and other countries up the top, I’d just love to go, it would be amazing. I think it would be the first thing on my list as I desperately want to volunteer there but at the moment I have my hands full and it’s not too easy.”

Val Corcoran
Castlebar
“I play the lotto alright but I get nothing out of it. The only thing I got about two years ago was €1,800 down in the bookies. I’ll never forget that Saturday evening when I was checking my numbers and I said to the daughter, ‘I’m after winning €700’, and she said, ‘What’s wrong with yeah, your after winning way more than that!’ Just imagine what it would be like if I won €29 million.”

Gerard O’Kane
Derry
“A house doesn’t interest me because I’m more than happy with where I live and I was told before that my house was worth over €1million, but I don’t care if it was worth €10million, I wouldn’t change it. You can’t buy your neighbours either so that’s important. That amount of money is too much, you have to be a very smart person to be able to handle it. A man in the north won £1million and he said he was so glad winning that because anything else was too much. There’s a saying I heard one day, ‘Thank God I got everything I needed and not everything I wanted’. Money doesn’t always bring you happiness.”

Mary Treacy
Ballina
“Oh god! I’d go abroad. I’d like to go to Spain, yeah. I’d buy a villa there and I’d have it for myself and my family. I’d probably move to Dublin too because most of my family are living up there anyway at the moment. I’d probably buy a house for them too. €29 million, it’s a crazy amount of money. I often thought about winning €1million and what I’d do with it, but never €29million, it’s an incredible amount of money for anyone to win.”

Michelle Tuohill
Ballycastle
 “A holiday would be the number one and I suppose then maybe another holiday after that. There’d be a long list of countries I’d like to go too, the bucket list I suppose. I’d love to go to America for sure. America would be top of the list, you could travel all of it with that amount of money. Cars don’t interest me as I don’t drive, I suppose I’d have to get a chauffeur for myself or something like that.”

Ann Walsh
Connemara
“Well I’d probably give some to family, a lot to my family actually. I wouldn’t be much into travelling, it’s something I haven’t thought about. I’d give a lot of it to charity too. I’d give it to a children’s charity, one working overseas in Syria.  I’ve never really thought about winning it because I don’t really do the lotto but if I did I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to win that amount of money. It would be pretty overwhelming I’d imagine. It would be nice but you wouldn’t know what to do with it.”