£115M TO BEAT THE JANUARY BLUES

A NORTHERN Ireland couple have had an amazing start to 2019 after scooping a life-changing £115million.

The Co Armagh pair are set to be officially revealed today as the winners of the New Year’s Day Euromillions draw.

The National Lottery made the announcement last night, revealing the lucky couple are the fourth biggest winners ever.

It said the pair who started the “New Year with a bang” are to go public

at the Culloden Hotel in Co Down this morning. The massive win dwarfs other Northern Ireland jackpots like the £27million scooped by Co Tyrone woman Margaret Loughrey in 2014. Belfast bus driver Peter Lavery is one of the region’s best-known winners, but his £10million ticket in 1996 is tiny in comparison to today’s sum.

Last year, National Lottery winners from across the country came together at a Belfast restaurant to celebrate 5,000 millionaires being created across the UK since the first draw in November 1994.

They were also celebrating our luckiest lottery year by far, with 14 new millionaires being created between April 2017 and April last year – an average of one every 26 days. The largest individual winner remains Iris Jeffrey from Belfast who won £20.1million in 2004.

Last year, Colin and Eithne Bell, who run the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, collected £1million.

LOTTO MONEY Pair are from Co Armagh