THE LARGE NORTH Dublin family who won the €175 million EuroMillions jackpot have claimed their prize, the National Lottery has confirmed. 

The family syndicate, who decided to keep their prize collection private, were presented with their winning cheque by National Lottery CEO, Dermot Griffin, in the National Lottery offices yesterday.

The winners from the Naul in north Dublin described themselves as a “very close family” and pledged to split the win between different members.

‘Life-changing’

Family spokesperson, Gerry Brown, said the family are now looking forward to getting on with their lives after what has been an exciting week.

This is life-changing for all of the family and we are absolutely thrilled. We have spent the last week getting independent legal and financial advice, and our win is slowly sinking in. We are a very close family and this is a dream come true for us. We want this win to change our lives in a positive way.

In an interview on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Brown said the family syndicate has been up and running a couple of years.

Explaining how they discovered the big win, Brown said his wife was watching the news on the night when she recognised three of their numbers.

For safekeeping, they kept the winning ticket in an Argos catalogue overnight. 

The winning €14 quick pick was sold at Reilly’s Daybreak in Naul, Co Dublin which Brown says is 500 metres from their house.

He told O’Rourke that not one person in the community told the media who the family were.

We live nearest the shop, all the reporters that were there, not one of them told them where we lived.

Brown added that since the win the whole family is “kind of retired” but that they don’t plan on moving out of Naul. 

“If you’re happy there why would you go anywhere you don’t even know,” Brown said. 

‘Happy days’

The €175.4 million Euromillions jackpot is the biggest winning prize in the history of the Irish National Lottery.

The last highest winning Irish Euromillions winner was Limerick Dolores McNamara, who picked up €115 million in the jackpot in 2005. 

With the winnings, Brown says he plans on buying a push bike. 

Part of a local cycling group, Brown said he’s looking forward to having a new bike which he says could cost up to €15,000. 

But the family spokesperson said the best part of the winning such a large jackpot is that he can look after his kids, grandkids and family.

“If I’d won it 30 years ago, it might be different … the best thing of the whole lot is what you can do for other people,” he said.  

National Lottery CEO, Dermot Griffin, congratulated the family on the biggest Lottery jackpot ever won in Ireland. 

Happy days like this is part of what playing National Lottery games is all about. This has been a historic few weeks for us with our biggest ever jackpot payout.