Michael Hayes (left) from the National Lottery sprays champagne as Les Reilly (centre) and the staff of Reilly's Daybreak in Naul, Co Dublin, celebrate selling the EuroMillions €175 million winning lotto ticket.

Michael Hayes (left) from the National Lottery sprays champagne as Les Reilly (centre) and the staff of Reilly's Daybreak in Naul, Co Dublin, celebrate selling the EuroMillions €175 million winning lotto ticket.

LAST NIGHT’S MASSIVE €175 million jackpot was won by a large family syndicate from North Dublin, who have said the win is a “dream come true”.

The family syndicate are from The Naul in County Dublin. Most of the group are retired and they are well-known within in the community, having lived in the area for two generations.

A spokesperson for the family said they were all very close and that they were looking forward to sharing the winnings with their children, grandchildren and extended family members.

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

“This is unbelievable. It will take us some time to get our heads around this win and to organise ourselves,” a family spokesperson – who is married to one of the syndicate – said.

“We are a very close family. We meet every week and we take holidays together every year. This is a dream come true for us,” he said.

We don’t want this to change our lives. What is so exciting is that we will be able to share this money with children, grandchildren and extended family members.

Checking the ticket

One of the syndicate members said she realised their good fortune after checking the ticket following the draw last night.

“I heard on the RTÉ news that there was a win in Ireland and I caught the last three numbers. I checked the rest of the numbers online. I was numb! It took a bit of convincing everybody that we had won,” she said.

She said that she put the winning ticket in an Argos catalogue and put it under mattress for safekeeping and that she “didn’t sleep a wink all night”.

#Open journalism No news is bad news Support The Journal Your contributions will help us continue to deliver the stories that are important to you Support us now

The family deposited the ticket with the National Lottery for safekeeping and the money is arranged to be paid out in the next few weeks.

“We know this is a huge story and there is great excitement over this win,” the spokesperson said.

We need time to let this news sink in and to prepare to collect our winnings. We are a normal family and we don’t’ want this to dramatically change our lives.

“Happy days like this is what playing National Lottery games is all about. We are just so pleased for the family and that this huge amount is being shared out,” said National Lottery CEO, Dermot Griffin.

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

The odds of winning the jackpot prize in Euromillions draw is 139,838,160 to one.