'I won £115m on EuroMillions - you'll never guess the first thing I bought'

Frances Connolly and her husband Paddy won nearly £115 million on EuroMillions in 2019, and has revealed what they did immediately after their huge win - including telling their daughters

A lottery winner who scooped nearly £115 million has revealed the unusual first item she bought.

Frances Connolly and husband Paddy, originally from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, have already given away more than half of their massive prize in EuroMillions in 2019. They immediately handed large chunks of cash to friends and family, using a list she even prepared in advance of the win

Frances, 58, estimates she has given away £60m, including to charity, but does not keep a tally. And she said of giving out money: “It gives you a buzz and it’s addictive. I’m addicted to it now.”

Frances, looking back on the win, has now revealed how they came to go public on the big news - and that the first item she bought with the money was a pair of knickers.

The couple were with the lottery winners’ adviser Andy Carter when they asked to speak to their children Fiona, Natalie and Katrina so they could tell them what had happened.

“We made a phone call to our three girls and said, ‘You know that couple who won the lottery last night? That was us’,” she told The Sun. “Then I phoned my dad, and Paddy went off to the other room and phoned his family. Then I called my brothers and sisters. By the time I’d phoned my last sister, my dad had phoned my aunt. She told her husband, who put it on Facebook. There was absolutely no point then not going public.”

And she told of the first item she bought was because they were stuck in a hotel and hadn’t brought much clothing. “Do you really want to know? A pair of knickers,” she said.. "We left our home with nothing, to keep us safe in case anybody found out about it and came to the house. And they did — within minutes.

"When we arrived at a hotel in England on Friday night, ahead of the press conference, I had to phone our Fiona and say, ‘Will you nip down to Marks & Spencer?’ She got a pack of three pairs for 12 quid.” But then on the first expensive item she added: “The first luxury thing I bought was for my dad — a gold pocket watch. Mind you, I put a letter F on it and told him when he died, I’d get it back.”

Their biggest expenditure after their win was a six-bedroom house in County Durham with seven acres of land, costing £1.9 million while they have a second-hand Aston Martin.

And asked in 2022 why she was happy to give away so much money she said: “Oh, who needs all that money? Why wouldn’t you? I’ve done that all my life. I’m not being funny, I’d have been a millionaire anyway if I took back all the money I’ve given away over the years. People do ask, ‘How did you cope with that amount of money?’ I said, ‘I never did. It wasn’t in the bank two days’.