AT FIRST she thought it was an April Fool’s joke, but yesterday Kildare woman Giustina Macari was basking in the realisation that she had won more than €5.7 million in the National Lottery.
Ms Macari (32) woke on Sunday to the rumour circulating through Kildare town that the winning ticket had been sold in Louis Malone’s shop, which is across from her family’s fish-and-chip business.
She realised the rumour was true when she saw the shop was festooned with National Lottery balloons. It is Malone’s first lotto jackpot in 25 years.
A regular lottery player, Ms Macari had to check several times when she was told by a shop assistant that she had won half of Saturday night’s €11,526,001 lotto jackpot, some €5,763,000.
She responded, “Great joke, guys,” until she was shown the numbers on her ticket matched those drawn on Saturday night.
Ms Macari is the daughter of Italian immigrants and is part of the wider Macari family who have chip shops all over Ireland.
She will invest some of her bonanza in horses, she says. She also intends to remain working at the chip shop.
“It’s still a business and I still have to work.”
She said the realisation she was now a multimillionaire was still sinking in and she was trying to “remain sensible”. Ms Macari is expected to pick up her cheque from the National Lottery headquarters in the coming days.
Meanwhile, the identity of the other lottery winner remains a secret. The second winning ticket was sold in Tesco in East Ham Road, Bettystown, Co Meath, on Saturday afternoon.
