A 24-MEMBER syndicate from the Ballybrown GAA club in Limerick are still celebrating after winning close to €200,000 in last Friday’s EuroMillions draw.
Club member Theresa O’Neill has been speaking to The42 about how it all unfolded.
‘We have referees, we have bar managers, coaches, chairmen, secretaries, treasurers, sponsors – we have everyone in the syndicate.
We started about twelve months ago and we meet every Monday night inside in the bar, give 2 euro each and then do a 24 euro Quick Pick on a Tuesday and a 24-euro Quick Pick on a Friday. No bonus, just the Quick Pick!”
We’re all club members and work hard for the club. As club members we won it and as individuals we won it. We’re all neighbours. It was absolutely fantastic that there were 24 of us in it and 24 different families – one member from each family was involved.”
It’s been an immensely special time for Ballybrown recently, who are celebrating the club’s 125th anniversary this year. Incredibly, and fittingly, the local community have enjoyed considerable success in various lotteries over the last twelve months.
“My father in-law won €120,000 about twelve months ago and I decided after that that we’d do the syndicate in the club”, says O’Neill.
“What a 24 hours, really, because we have a Mick Mackey Stand Draw in Limerick and Ollie O’Connor – who played for the county and who is a member of our club and whose sons are now playing with our club – he won €13,000 in that draw on the Saturday morning. So, in such a short space of time, we had over €200,000 won in the parish.”
Last Saturday morning, O’Neill scanned the numbers and realised something was up. Something felt a little different.
I always check the tickets. I purchase the tickets, I collect the money. I was with with my husband on Saturday morning and said ‘Will you sit down, please, and check these numbers? I think we’ve a big win’. And sure enough we had. So, we walked across the road to Hayes’ shop. Colm was waiting for us inside – he was after getting a call from the National Lottery to tell him he had another winner but he didn’t know it was me until I walked in. Every Tuesday and Friday I walk over and say ‘Okay, Colm – these are the lucky numbers’.
The story behind the lucky ticket is that it got stuck in the printer and it tore at the bottom. He said to me when he handed it to me on Friday evening – ‘That’s the lucky one, Theresa’ and he was right.”
With the GAA club being such a stronghold of the Ballybrown parish, it will benefit indirectly from the syndicate’s win – something that makes O’Neill and her fellow winners all the more happy.
“We’ll have a night there to celebrate and the money will go back into the club in many ways through various things.”
