Another stroke of luck for Rebels

Money (stock image)

It’s been a summer of luck for Cork players chancing their luck on the Cash Machine as another lucky radio listener has taken home a record-breaking jackpot.

Katie Kelleher from Cobh got the good news on Friday when the fateful call came in, and she rattled off the winning figure – €311,000 – without so much as a second thought. It’s the third time since May that a Cork player has taken home a record jackpot, beating the previous total by €1,000.

After a night of celebrations, Katie was back on the air, talking about how such a massive win felt and what plans she had for the sudden influx of cash.

She said: “Even listening to that again, I’m welling up. [When I hung up] I rang my husband and told him I’d won the cash machine, and he was like: ‘No, you didn’t.’

“There are loads we want to do, the kids have lists as long as their arms, they want to go see a United game, we can do that Tokyo trip we’ve always been on about. We spoke about it last night and said we’d do one big mad family holiday and do something that would have never been possible before,” she told Alison on Today FM’s Weekend Breakfast.

“There’ll be massive house renovations, the kids want to get the attic converted, it’s life-changing. We are absolutely over the moon; it hasn’t sunk in properly just yet.”

It’s been an incredible year for cash machine wins here in Cork, with three other players taking home massive prizes in recent months. In May, the O’Riordans from Ballincollig took home a prize of €305,000.

The father, Donal, said it was “such a special moment” for him, his wife, Susan and son Zack. The family said they would be planning a trip to Disneyland with the winnings.

At the time, the €305,000 win was the biggest ever cash machine prize awarded, but it took only a few more weeks before another Cork winner managed to smash that record. In July, Youghal’s Siobhán O’Brien got the call while on the way into town to drop off her sister for a night out. Thankfully, she managed to remember the correct figure and claim the record-breaking prize of €310,000

The most recent win fell just short of breaking another record, but it’s still a life-changing sum of cash. The Nugent family claimed €303,000 on the same weekend that the Cork camogie team took home the All-Ireland, giving them two reasons to celebrate.