WEST Cork’s newest millionaires have made contact with Lottery bosses following the double West Cork bonanza in last week’s EuroMillions draw.
In a first for West Cork, two shops – Minihane’s Gala store on Pearse Street in Clonakilty and Healy’s SuperValu store in Dunmanway – both sold winning tickets worth €1m. The stores are just 20km apart.
A National Lottery spokesperson confirmed that both lucky winners have now contacted them and arrangements are being made for the prizes to be paid.
Samantha Minihane, who only took over Minihane’s Gala store in Clonakilty last September, has spoken of her joy at seeing one of her customers win the €1m life-changing prize.
‘I was actually serving a customer when I got the call, but had to cancel it and then it rang again, so I said I better ring back. I presumed someone had won something on a scratch card and had no idea it would be €1m so I did a little bit of a dance on the shop floor when I was told. My staff thought I was after winning the Lotto!’ she said. ‘The lads in De Barra’s across the street even dropped over lights for a balloon display.’
In neighbouring Dunmanway, Andrew Healy – who has run Healy’s SuperValu with his wife, Martina for the past 17 years – welcomed the EuroMillions wins as a big boost to both Dunmanway and West Cork.
‘When you think about how many EuroMillions players there are throughout Europe, and we get two people in West Cork out of the lucky 100 players to collect this prize. It’s incredible!’ he said.
‘Since the draw on Friday night, we’ve had people calling the store asking if we sold the winning ticket,’ he added. ‘According to the rumours doing the rounds I’m after winning it about 50 times myself – but unfortunately I didn’t even do it!
A Lottery spokesperson said it was ‘incredible’ to have two neighbouring towns share in the win. ‘Compared to the overall size of the EuroMillions community, to have two of these raffle wins in such close proximity is very exciting,’ he said.
