Family wins €4.5m on Christmas Day with ticket lying in car

The festive celebrations are continuing for one Cavan family after they realised on Christmas morning they had a winning lotto ticket worth more than €4.5 million lying on their car dashboard.

The family from Bailieborough, who do not wish to be named, purchased the winning Quick Pick ticket at SuperValu on Main Street, Bailieborough on Christmas Eve, the day of the draw.

They travelled to the National Lottery offices in Dublin on Friday to collect the €4,577,663 jackpot prize.

“We were driving home on Christmas morning when my son told me that the local shop had sold a winning Lotto ticket,” the father said. “He was able to tell me that it was a Quick Pick ticket and I suddenly realised that I had a Lotto ticket in the car.

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“I gave it to him and he quickly scanned the ticket on his phone. A message came up to tell us to contact the National Lottery so we still didn’t know if we were the winners.

“We got home just before the Christmas dinner and I got my son to get the winning Lotto numbers on his computer. He called them out to me, one by one and before he even finished, we knew we had hit the jackpot, the place went absolutely mad.

“It was a fantastic Christmas. The whole family were at home and we had even more reason to celebrate with our Lotto win.”

The father also paid tribute to the family’s close friends and neighbours who have helped them come to terms with their win.

“We live in a very small close knit community and our neighbours and friends have been incredible over the past few weeks with good wishes and messages of support,” he said.

The father said the family are planning a “big party” for their neighbours in the next few weeks when “the excitement dies down”.

“We would be a very level headed family so there is no chance we will get carried away too much by the win. I was actually back to work on St Stephen’s Day. There is no chance that any of us will be giving up our jobs anytime soon.”