EuroMillions winner Frances Connolly splashes the cash to save her sister's home

Frances Connolly, 52, and Patrick Connolly, 54, from Moira in Northern Ireland, who scooped a £115 million EuroMillions jackpot in the New Year’s Day lottery draw, have saved the home of Frances’ sister – Sharon Bordessa.
Frances Connolly, 52, and Patrick Connolly, 54, from Moira in Northern Ireland, who scooped a £115 million EuroMillions jackpot in the New Year’s Day lottery draw, have saved the home of Frances’ sister – Sharon Bordessa.

One of Northern Ireland’s biggest lottery winners has splashed the cash to help save her sister’s family home.

The BBC reports EuroMillions winner Frances Connolly‘s sister Sharon Bordessa put her house on the market when she moved into her late mother Kathleen’s home to care for her in 2017.

The sale was due to be completed in the coming weeks but Mrs Connolly stepped in to stop the sale after she and husband Patrick won almost £115m in the New Year’s Day EuroMillions draw.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle Sharon said: “I just found out on Thursday morning.

Frances Connolly did voluntary work for the not-for-profit publication View and says she and husband Patrick will give money to charitable causes.
Frances Connolly did voluntary work for the not-for-profit publication View and says she and husband Patrick will give money to charitable causes.

“She said she had some good news: ‘Me and Paddy have won the Euromillions and you don’t have to sell your house’.

“I don’t know if I believed her at first.

“Our mum passed away a year ago but my children and I had moved from our home back to Frances’ family home, where she had been born, to live with mum.

“Mummy wanted me to buy her home. I couldn’t do that until our house sold.”

She said an offer short of the asking price had been accepted and the sale was progressing because “we just needed to sell.”

“But that then left me short in buying our original home,” she added.

“It is two homes really that have been saved.”

The Connollys – who have three daughters and three grandchildren – said after their win that they have made a list of 50 people with whom they intend to share their good fortune.

The couple, who live in Moira in County Down, bought the ticket online after forgetting to do so during a shop trip earlier in the day.

Mrs Bordessa, who lives in The Glebe, near Strabane in County Tyrone, told the Irish News she had been ringing around her relatives in “total and utter shock”.

She said that generosity is typical of her sister.

“That wouldn’t be something that they just said to look good, that is something that is totally genuine,” she said.

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