An Irish EuroMillions winner has been labelled a real-life “fairy godmother” after giving away nearly half of her €136 million fortune.
Frances and Patrick Connolly have been living the good life while also helping their family members, their kids, and the general public with two well established charitable foundations in the north of Ireland and England.
The 55-year-old former social worker and teacher estimates she has given away €60 million so far, including donations to charity, and says they plan to continue doing all they can.
Speaking to Claire Byrne this morning about the moment they won the life-changing sum, Frances said: “I kind of went into overdrive, first of all, I went into shock.
“We had a cup of tea and sat looking at each other for a bit, and then I’m one of these people who were like ‘well you know, just get on with it.’
Her husband was the one to realise the win, and Frances said: “I’m not being funny, I said to Paddy when he showed me the ticket,’ well you said it is good news so it can’t be £2.50, so how much did we win?’
“He said ‘no we’ve won’ and I said ‘I don’t even know what the jackpot was, what did we win?’
“So he told me and for the first time in my life, went silent.”
She went on to explain how they carefully organised who they could help with the money and said: “That first night we listed about 50 family members, we decided we weren’t giving to young people because I have 17 nieces and nephews and I thought, you know I don’t want to be responsible for somebody crashing a big car or dying of a drug overdose because I’d given them loads of money.
“So we decided to give to the family and let the family be responsible for what the children got.”
When Claire Byrne asked about their hugely generous nature after the mega win, Frances said she thinks the giving nature is ‘built into the Irish psyche’ and said she thinks everyone would do the same thing.
“For a start, everybody would help their family and friends, that's a given, I haven’t met anyone that’s won the lottery or come into a bit of money that hasn’t helped somebody,” she said.
The loved-up pair said aside from the tremendous work being done with their own charities, Frances and Paddy have also been able to have a bit of fun with the money.
“Myself and my husband did a tour of Scotland for our honeymoon and we don’t normally do anniversaries, he makes everyday like a honeymoon for me,” she said
“But we decided we would do the same tour but just stay in nicer hotels, so things like that have been lovely.
“Paddy drives an Aston Martin and I’ve got some nice bits of jewellery but they’re ordinary bits of jewellery and they’re just a bit bigger than they were before."
Becoming one of Ireland’s richest couples does come with some downsides, and so Claire Byrne asked about their need for security, to which Frances said: “I think because we haven’t bought an awful lot of nice jewellery and stuff like that, we’re no too worried.
“I mean we’ve got the gate on, the security people come round, so yeah you do you have to be a bit more conscious about stuff like that.
“But I’m not on the telly all the time and people don’t know your face so you know you’re not at any more risk than anybody else.
“I mean there is nasty people out there that feel they have a right to take whatever they want so I suppose they will if they want to but we’ve got security people, we’ve got cameras, we’ve got ,you know, what everybody else does.”
After Frances admitted to giving away around €60 million already, the radio presenter asked what the plan was for the rest of the money and whether they would continue to be so generous with the remaining fortune.
To which the Lotto winner said: “I think it will be on a much smaller scale now, and mainly through the charities.
“There will always be the need to give some while I have some, but if I came on this show this time next year and said ‘we’re skint,’ it wouldn’t be quite as impressive.
“So we were very sensible at the beginning, we put away enough money that we could live on for the rest of our lives and to leave a bit for our children, so we’re sorted.
“So there will be giving just like I said on a smaller scale and more slowly.”
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