€6m Lotto winner's van breaks down on way to interview
The lucky Mayo man who won this week's €6m Lotto jackpot had to cancel a personal appearance on RTE radio this morning when his van broke down on the way to Dublin.
Ger Murphy spoke instead to Marian Finucane by phone "from the side of the road in Ballinasloe" to reveal how the week since his win has been going.
"Some cable went (in the van's engine)," he said. "I'm sorry about that."
Ger said he was unaware after last Saturday night's draw that he had won the prize, and only found out on Sunday morning when his elderly mother sent him up to their local shop in Ballinrobe for cigarettes.
"I put the Lotto ticket into the machine and a message came up to 'Contact Lotto HQ'," he told Marian Finucane.
"I thought there was something wrong with the machine," he said.
Ger returned to his mother's house where his brother looked up the winning numbers on his laptop.
"He said 3 and 7 and I called out the rest of my numbers - 11, 33, 37 and 42," Ger said "I knew then I'd won."
He said he had to say to himself a few times: "I won the lottery", before it started to sink in, and added the news was "all over Ballinrobe within 10 minutes".
If I ever win, I won't be able to spill the fizz #Lotto pic.twitter.com/Mqs6oSCAKc
— Juliette Gash (@JulietteGash) August 5, 2015
Ger, who is expecting his €6,384,673 next week, said it had been a pleasure ever since to have people wishing him well, but also revealed he had received a few letters from strangers asking for a slice of the cash.
One letter came from a plasterer in Donegal looking for €20,000 to buy a tractor and a car.
"I don't know what a plasterer wants with a tractor," Ger laughed.
Ger is contemplating a move back to the UK in a few months' time, where his grown children and his ex-wife live. Ger spent time there as a carpenter before moving back to Mayo at the height of the boom.
Before his win, he had intended to move back to the UK in any case, at whatever time his 12-year-old boxer dog died.
And has his jackpot win changed him at all?
"I don't feel one bit different yet," he said, adding he was looking forward to taking possession of a new Transit van next week and had an eye out for a new partner.
"I'm a bachelor on the look-out!" he laughed.
