American woman wins dream cottage in Ireland

Extra.ie​

28-06-2025

For one 29-year-old Irish-American woman, it was definitely the luck of the Irish when she won a traditional stone cottage for the price of a $12 raffle ticket.
Marine Corps officer Kathleen Spangler bought three tickets for the draw and then promptly forgot about them, so she was amazed to get a message out of the blue asking, 'By chance did you win a cottage in Ireland?'
The picture postcard house, surrounded by wildflowers, was raffled by owner Imelda Collins who was moving to Italy and Kathleen bought the tickets on a whim last December after seeing a post announcing the chance to win the cottage and 1.75 acres of land in County Leitrim. Imelda Collins outside the cottage in Co Leitrim. Pic: Raffall
It was a busy year for the mom of three as just two months earlier she had applied for Irish citizenship through lineage on her father's side.
Then in February she and husband Michael, also a Marine officer, transferred stations from North Carolina to Dayton Ohio and were preparing for graduate studies, so she never thought of the tickets.
'I completely forgot about it' Kathleen told the New York Times. 'Nobody enters these things really thinking that they're going to win. But there's always a chance, and that's the fun part.' Carrick-on-Shannon Co.Leitrim – Pic: Getty Images
Then last month she got a text from a friend asking if she had won a cottage in Leitrim. His friend had just read an article about the cottage and noticed that the organisers had announced the winner as a Kathleen Spangler.
And I said: 'I don't think so but let me check.' Kathleen was flabbergasted when she realised she had won and immediately called her husband who was in a math's class, telling him the amazing news that she had just won a house in Ireland.
She told him more about the raffle, but he thought it was a scam, until Kathleen received an email from Imelda Collins, and then they realised it was true. 'It was a great experience to be able to speak directly to her and helped to make it real.'
Winning a cottage in Ireland represents something of a homecoming for Kathleen as her grandmother had emigrated from Mayo to the United States, while her great grandfather's family hailed from Sligo, about 12 miles from the cottage. Beautiful summer day at long and sandy Strandhill beach, Sligo bay.
With a newborn and two toddlers the Spanglers are now sorting out the legal paperwork. 'My husband and I have talked about someday, where we are out of the military, getting priority overseas and splitting time between there and the United States', she told the New York Times.
'But that was obviously a future goal.'