‘We celebrated with a cup of tea and a hug’: Lucky couple from Northern Ireland revel in £115 million EuroMillions win

A lucky couple from County Armagh in Northern Ireland are celebrating a £115 million EuroMillions jackpot they won on New Year's Day.

Patrick and Frances Connolly recalled how they celebrated the huge win at a press conference in Belfast.

“We don't really do excited - perhaps I raised my voice just a bit at the time when I found out - but we celebrated with a cup of tea and a hug,” Frances said.

“This is a massive sum of money and we want it to have a huge impact on the lives of other people we know and love as well as on our future too. This win gives us the chance to really make a difference for our family and friends.

"I always hoped we would win the lottery one day, but when we did, it would be just our luck that lots of others would win on the same day with the same numbers too - never in my wildest dreams did I think we would ever win almost £115 million."

The pair said they could not sleep after realising they had won. Credit: PA

Her husband, Patrick, said the win felt ”unreal“.

"We really didn't know what to do or how to react and we didn't sleep a wink that night," he said.

"We rang Camelot at 8am in the morning to verify the win. Then it started to dawn on us that it was true even though it still hasn't really sunk in."

In the New Year's Day draw, 10 other players took home £1 million in prize money each.

The winning main EuroMillions numbers were 01, 08, 11, 25, 28 and the winning EuroMillions Lucky Star numbers were 04 and 06.

How would you spend £114.9m? Credit: PA

The New Year's Day win follows a series of high-profile lottery prizes in recent years.

In July 2011, Colin and Chris Weir, from Ayrshire, became the biggest lottery winners in the UK, and across Europe, when they scooped more than £161 million.

Adrian and Gillian Bayford, from Suffolk, took home more than £148 million in August 2012 while the biggest prize awarded in the country in 2018 was £121 million, handed to an anonymous winner in April.

Last December, builder Andrew Clark, 51, from Boston, Lincolnshire, discovered he had won £76 million, six weeks after the draw.