Lottery joy for the Kelly family with £500,000 windfall

January 1997

A well known local family received an unbelievable festive fillip when they struck gold in the National Lottery jackpot over the Christmas holiday.

The lucky family discovered their win on Christmas Day.

And the village of Enniskerry was this week toasting the Kelly family from Millfield, who travelled to Dublin on Monday to collect their half-million pound one-third share in last week’s £1,728,000 jackpot in the pre- Christmas lottery draw.

Mum Rita Kelly and her two sons Stephen and Michael were the joint holders of a £576,172 winning ticket which just about spoiled their Christmas dinner... but for just about the perfect reason. ‘We were sitting down to dinner when my father-in-law called out the winning numbers. I couldn’t believe it when we discovered that we had all six of them. We couldn’t finish our dinner with the excitement,’ Stephen recalled, as he described how they discovered on Christmas Day that they were winners.

The family were being described by neighbours this week as ‘ the most decent people and the best possible people to win the lotto’.

Rita Kelly’s husband Michael ‘Bikes’ Kelly is a former honorary Lord Mayor of the village, a vice-chairman of the local GAA club, and an active member of the Enniskerry Senior Citizen’s Committee. Joint ticket-holder Michael Jnr, who works as a bus driver in Dublin, married Emer just three months ago.

Stephen, who is employed at AO Smith in Bray, is married to Liz and they are parents to five-month old Katie.

Rita Kelly, upon receiving her £191,000 share of the Lottery winnings, announced this week that she intended to give each of her four daughters some of her winnings, while Stephen declared jokingly that he would buy the other two doors to the two door car which he purchased recently.

Michael Kelly’s wife Emer, a nurse who had been working on Christmas Day, heard the lucky news of their winnings in a festive phone call from her husband.

‘On being told that she had won “191”, she didn’t know if it was £191 or £191,000,’ said Michael. The winning ticket was bought at the local Jack Windsor’s shop by the trio. They habitually spent £10 every week to compete in the National Lottery draw.

‘ They would be very popular local winners and the whole of the village are really happy for them,’ said proprietor Sean Windsor.