By David Raleigh
Christmas has come early for a Cork-based syndicate after it was confirmed today they scooped last Saturday night's €3.88m lottery jackpot.
The ten-person syndicate are all workers on the cheese strings production line at the Kerry Group factory in Charleville.
The thrilled group had been trying their luck for the jackpot for the past 12 years.
According to a spokesperson for the company, the lucky syndicate didn't realise they had won the nearly €4m draw until Monday, after the ticket holder looked at it with the rest of the group at work on Monday morning.
"There is one female and nine males in the group. They all appeared for work as usual on Monday morning and I don't think they realised until then after the ticket holder produced the winning ticket," said a spokesman at the company.
"Their manager said they are all great employees, and we are all delighted for them," they added.
The lucky 10 now have the enviable task of deciding how to spend their individual prizes of €388,375.60.
"They haven't collected the winnings yet, but I believe they will be doing so in the coming week," said the company spokesman.
The winning ticket was sold in O'Grady's SPAR shop in Ballingarry, Co Limerick, run by Limerick hurling captain, Donal O'Grady.
Donal said: "We heard rumours, but we didn't know who had won."
Reacting to the news this evening he added: "That's brilliant. We're delighted. The one thing we hoped was that the winner would be someone in the general locality so if that is correct that's brilliant."
"It's nice to keep it in the locality," the local hurling hero said.