Buzz in Mullahoran after €58K lotto winner comes forward

The mystery holder of a €58,000 ticket in the Mullahoran area has made contact with National Lottery headquarters. The lucky punter matched five numbers and the bonus in last Saturday night’s draw. The winning ticket was sold last Saturday in Lynch’s Gala in Killydoon and proprietor Paudie McKenna said the community is buzzing with excitement.

“The place is alive with it at the moment. It’s a far bigger buzz than I would have imagined,” he told the Celt yesterday.

It is the shop’s biggest win since Paudie and his wife Margaret took over the shop in 2006 and Paudie say the “banter”, “craic” and “speculation” in the community is great.

“A lot of tickets are being scanned and lots of sales are being generated from it as people feel we may be on a lucky streak,” Paudie said.

He got the call from his Lotto sales rep around 8:30am on Sunday morning.

“I saw the name coming up and I thought ‘wow this is it, we have sold a winner’ but he told me to calm down, it wasn’t the big one, we were one number away,” Paudie described of the moment he heard the good news.

The staff in the shop have their own lotto syndicate and the first thing they did on Sunday morning was check their own ticket but, alas, it wasn’t the lucky one.

The McKennas wish the winner well: “We would like to wish the lucky ticket holder good luck and thank them for shopping with us.”

The winning ticket is worth €57,957 and, although it’s likely to be a local winner given current travel restrictions, Lynch’s Gala is located on the main N55 and gets good passing trade from lorry drivers and other essential workers.

The ticket holder matched five numbers and the bonus, just one number shy of winning the €2.86M jackpot on offer.

The Lotto numbers for Saturday night’s draw were: 01 - 09 - 22 - 34 - 41 - 43 and the bonus was 20.

There was no winner of the overall jackpot.