A Donegal family who became instant millionaires in the Lotto last week are taking a sensible digital approach to their success.

They can’t throw a party due to coronavirus, but they have been celebrating by WhatsApp and texts!

The lucky lotto winners have decided to remain anonymous scooping €1million in last Wednesday’s Lotto Plus One draw. The winning Quick Pick ticket was sold at Kavanagh’s Supervalu in Dungloe.

Staff members of Supervalu Dungloe, Co Donegal, Kate, Kathleen Byrne, Roisin Staunton, Philomena Keys, Eileen Greene and Olivia Mc Cole with manager Liam Mc Shea celebrating selling a winning one million euro Lotto Plus ticket recently. Pic: Philip Mulligan for Mac Innes Photography

The National Lottery has today revealed that the family has picked up their massive prize at National Lottery headquarters in Dublin city centre. New precautions are in place at Lottery HQ, but the celebratory feeling remained during the event.

The lucky family have described their win as ‘truly life-changing’ but have kept their feet firmly on the ground since they found out about their win last week due to the developments in the Covid-19 situation.

The delighted mother of the winning group said: “It really is a strange feeling. We’ve just become millionaires overnight and every fibre of your body wants to jump around and celebrate with your entire family but with the current virus outbreak, we have been incredibly sensible and kept our distance from everybody and just celebrated by text and WhatsApp.

“You always have this idea of how you will celebrate when you win the Lotto but I think there is a huge responsibility on everybody in the country to keep your distance no matter what the circumstance, even if you win the Lotto!”

Liam Mc Shea, (left) manager of Supervalu Dungloe, Co Donegal is congratulated by Pauric Gillespie from The National Lottery with an elbow bump to celebrate selling a winning one million euro Lotto Plus ticket recently. Pic: Philip Mulligan for Mac Innes Photography

The family have admitted that it will be some time before they put plans into place for their €1 million wind-fall due to COVID-19 but they intend to share their prize with extended family after they pay off their mortgage: “We are a very normal family so it truly won’t change us. Family is so important to us and they have always been there for us so once we pay off our own mortgage, we’ll be dividing a large chunk of it up between them all.

“We’re also looking forward to celebrating properly when the time is right and it’s safe to do so, we will gather all of the family to mark our Lotto win officially,” added the lucky Donegal woman.