Donegal Couple Wins Telly Bingo
An ecstatic couple from Co. Donegal have fulfilled a life-long ambition of visiting the famous National Lottery winners’ room in Dublin today after they collected a cheque for €60,000 which they won on the National Lottery’s Telly Bingo TV gameshow.
Donald and Eileen McGonagle from Greencastle in Co. Donegal, who are life-long Telly Bingo players religiously watch the Telly Bingo show on RTÉ every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday but ironically missed the all-important show when their €2.50 ticket netted them a Snowball prize of €60,000!
The lucky couple who are married for 55 years bought their winning ticket at Farren’s Newsagents in Moville in Co. Donegal and it wasn’t until they revisited the store the following day that they found out about their massive win.
“We had no idea that the top prize of Telly Bingo had even been won so the day after the draw, we were pottering around Moville and we saw a poster in the window in the shop to say that they had sold the €60,000 prize. We got a little flutter of excitement as we got our tickets out to check them in the shop but we never would have imagined we would be the lucky winners. There has been great excitement around the town ever since with a lot of well-wishing neighbours and friends, it’s just been brilliant,” said a delighted Eileen McGonagle.
So far this year, an astonishing €6.3 million in prizes has been won by over 720,000 players in the TellyBingo game, including 14 winners of the Snowball top prize.
As the retired couple celebrated their incredible Telly Bingo win, they discussed how it came at a poignant time when they were celebrating the birthday of their daughter who had passed away previously:
“It was a very emotional week for us. On the day we won the Telly Bingo prize, we were celebrating our daughter’s birthday who is no longer with us. We firmly believe that she’s after pulling a few strings up there to look after us! Money isn’t everything but it will allow us to do things we weren’t in a position to do before. We both love the sun so we’ve started planning a cruise around the Mediterranean very soon. We just can’t wait,” she added.
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on all 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 €5.4 Billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 32 years ago. In 2018 alone, more than €227 million was raised; the equivalent of €620,000 a day in support for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland.
Date: 18/07/2019
Want to share that Winning Feeling? Pick up a Telly Bingo ticket in-store at National Lottery agents nationwide.