THANKS A BILLION

€2.5bn paid to Irish Lotto winners

MORE than €2.5billion has been paid out to lucky Lotto winners since the draw first started.

Figures released to mark 30 years since the first win reveal there have been 1,740 jackpot prizes claimed.

The highest was a mega €18,963,441 scooped in June 2008 by a syndicate in Carlow.

And the counties with the most wins are Dublin (572), Cork (173) and Galway (92).

Ireland’s first Lotto jackpot winner was Brigid Mcgrath from Letterkenny, Co Donegal.

She won a life-changing £147,059 (punts) – €2million in today’s money – on Saturday April 16, 1988.

A widow who had reared a very young family on her own, she became an instant celebrity appearing on the front of newspapers and on news bulletin for days as well as being a guest on the Late Late Show.

After the win, Brigid bought houses for her adult children and treated herself to a cottage in Letterkenny.

The man who sold her the winning ticket, Brendan Proctor of Proctor’s Newsagents, recalled: “1988 was a completely different era in Ireland.

“The country was coming out of one of the worst recessions in the history of the State and the Lotto allowed people to play for sums they could never have imagined.

“The week of the first draw was just crazy. In my own shop in Letterkenny ticket sales were through the roof.

“On the Saturday of the draw queues to buy tickets were out the door.”