Lucky Louth winner scoops Euromillions prize of €255,000
The quickpick winning ticket was purchased on the day of the draw from the Applegreen on Newfoundwell Road.
In addition to the usual €5,000 raffle prize, the Louth winner received an additional prize of €250,000, resulting in total winnings of €255,000, following last night's EuroMillions draw.
Typically, every EuroMillions draw produces ten winners of the €5,000 Ireland-Only Raffle prize, but this month players have the chance to win an additional €250,000, with just one more bonus winner for selection this month.
Past winners include four people in Dublin, and individual players from Meath, Limerick, Wicklow, and now Louth.
The National Lottery is urging all players in the Drogheda area to now check their tickets carefully. The all-important winning number is I-SDL-14299
If you are holding the winning ticket, be sure to contact the National Lottery prize claims team on 1800 666 222 or email claims@lottery.ie to arrange the collection of your prize.
National Lottery spokesperson Emma Monaghan said: 'While there was no winner of last night's EuroMillions jackpot worth €198,011,279, over 59,000 players in Ireland won prizes in the EuroMillions and EuroMillions plus games.
'With one more prize of €255,000 still to be won, the big question is: what county will be next? It could be you.'
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on National Lottery games goes back to good causes in the areas of sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage and the Irish language.
In total, more than €6.5 billion has been raised for good causes since the National Lottery was established 37 years ago. In 2024 alone, €239.3 million was raised for local good causes in communities across Ireland.
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Irish Times
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Irish abroad: ‘One local called me a potato eater . . . ironically, he was eating cheesy fries at the time'
When I first moved to the UK , I said I'd give it six months. Now it's been six years and I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever leave. Last year I was fortunate enough to buy my first home. The elation of the achievement was tempered by the fright of having done so in London. I don't remember making a conscious choice to stay here permanently, but maybe this is it. Milestones like these hammer home the reality of living abroad. Detached from my support network, out on my own. Back in Ireland , I'd have had an instinct for the property market in terms of location and what an area might be like to live in. My parents might have popped along to a viewing and offered an opinion on how much they felt the apartment was worth. READ MORE Buying over here left me at the mercy of English estate agents. With their severe haircuts and ill-fitting suits, they look like they're running late for an Andrew Tate seminar. It starts with an oily handshake, then the lies start. 'The sellers have turned down multiple offers already.' 'The neighbours are all really lovely.' 'I kissed a girl at the weekend. No, you don't know her. She goes to a different school.' Cillian Murphy moved his family to Cork when his kids started speaking with posh English accents. I can only imagine the pain. Of course, I wouldn't abandon my child if they spoke like that, but I'd probably love them 10 per cent less. 'Papa, take Poppy and I to Waitrose to buy hummus. I'm ever so hungry.' My real fear is staying in the UK so long that I go full Pierce Brosnan The urge to put him or her in a basket and leave them on the steps of a church would be overpowering. The lilt of our voices is the birthright of any Irish baby. How we sound is our only natural advantage when we move away. Without it, we're just freckled alcoholics with translucent skin, doomed to walk the earth for eternity in a state of bleary-eyed shame. Nosferatu in an Aran jumper. Murphy was right to take his children home. It was the humane thing to do. The accent is our superpower. Meandering, dull stories become charming. Incoherent mumbling is mistaken for poetry. Birthing a baby with an Irish head but denying them the accent is an act of child cruelty. This is not universally true. There are those who hear the gentle rhythm of our speech and are overcome with a poisonous envy. Years ago, I was standing outside a kebab shop in Western Australia when a local turned to me and called me a 'potato eater'. The irony was that he was eating cheesy fries at the time. Who knows if I'll have a child or not. My real fear is staying in the UK so long that I go full Pierce Brosnan. So far removed from my origin that I become an awkward facsimile of myself. Half-remembered visions of my childhood blurring with drunken fever dreams. Perched on a barstool in a silk cravat, waxing lyrical about the old country to anyone who will listen. 'I do miss Éire,' I'd slur. 'My father built our family home from clay and sticks on the banks of the River Liffey. I often wonder if it's still standing.' Perhaps I should reflect less on what I might be losing and consider what it is that I've gained by leaving Ireland. [ The Irish diaspora setting up and running businesses abroad Opens in new window ] [ The New York island that is the final resting place for thousands of Irish emigrants Opens in new window ] Living in a foreign country gives you the chance to look at yourself a little differently, to try doing things another way. Part of it might just be a function of getting older. But, since living in London, I've definitely taken chances that I never did back home. Starting a new life is hard. Emigrating forces you to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's challenging, but you might just surprise yourself with how much you can handle. When things feel like too much and you feel like going home, that is actually the very moment that you should stay. Unless, of course, your kids start sounding like they're in Downton Abbey. Then it's probably time to go. Sign up to The Irish Times Abroad newsletter for Irish-connected people around the world. Here you'll find readers' stories of their lives overseas, plus news, business, sports, opinion, culture and lifestyle journalism relevant to Irish people around the world If you live overseas and would like to share your experience with Irish Times Abroad, you can use the form below, or email abroad@ with a little information about you and what you do. Thank you
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Revelations show appalling personal behaviour among some CHI medics
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Irish Times
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Forget hope. Be a hopeful pessimist instead
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'It is often said that 'so long as there is life, there is hope', but the truth, if anything, is the opposite: it is hope that keeps life going, protects it, takes care of it, helps it to grow,' he wrote. Camus was more ambivalent about optimism, and argued pessimism could be a more powerful force against inertia, what he called 'man's strongest temptation'. He was particularly wary of ideological hope in 'some great idea' – be it religious or secular – that deflected us from reality. 'We find in his [Camus's] pessimism a clearsightedness that cuts through all the subterfuges and evasions available in his time to the beating core of his activism: that we must do what must be done, for reasons of justice and solidarity – because we owe it to our fellow human beings to prevent their suffering as best we can ... 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Hope can be defined as either positive thinking or constructive thinking. One is more passive than the other. Optimism can be defined as a belief in a positive outcome. It has a faith element, and potentially carries higher risks and rewards. Studies show optimists live longer but are also more likely to take risks. 'The evidence suggests that optimism is widespread, stubborn and costly,' the psychologist Daniel Kahneman said. He had in mind particularly the optimism around public projects, and how spending estimates on infrastructure were always pitched towards the most hopeful end of the spectrum. Hello National Children's Hospital . Then there is utopianism, which can be defined as an ideological attachment to progress or some idealised future. [ Could there be good reason to believe in life after death? Opens in new window ] So defined, it's always good to have some hope. Treat optimism with caution and be very wary of utopianism. Van der Lugt resolves the matter in a different way, saying we should strive to become 'hopeful pessimists'. This aims to take the best of what optimism and pessimism both have to offer. It has the advantage of drawing us away from self-centred hope, and towards the responsibilities we have to our fellow human beings and the wider world. 'If anything, the pessimists have taught me this: with eyes full of that darkness there can still be this strange shattering openness, like a door cracked open, for the good to make its entry into life. Since all things are uncertain, so too is the future, and so there is always the possibility of change for better as there is for worse,' writes Van der Lugt. An exclusive focus on hope can lead us towards passivity and indifference. Better that we are hopeful pessimists who, as Van der Lugt puts it, 'strive for change without certainties, without expecting anything from our efforts other than the knowledge that we have done what we are called upon to do as moral agents in a time of change'.
