Dolores McNamara

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Dolores McNamara (born January 13, 1960, in Blackpool, England) is noteworthy for being the largest individual prizewinner in European lottery history. On July 31, 2005, her €2 quick-pick ticket for the transnational EuroMillions lottery matched the game's five winning numbers and two "lucky stars," winning her a nine-week rollover jackpot of €115,436,126 and making her the Republic of Ireland's 72nd richest person.^[1] McNamara, who had purchased the ticket at a convenience store near her home in Limerick, claimed her record-breaking prize five days later at the Irish National Lottery headquarters in Dublin. The subject of numerous newspaper and magazine articles and profiles, McNamara is a well-known persona, particularly within the Republic of Ireland.

1 Background and Family
2 Life after EuroMillions
3 Family Controversies
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Background and Family

The eldest child of Desmond and Elizabeth O'Donovan, the former an emigrant tailor from Limerick, Dolores O'Donovan was born in the English seaside resort town of Blackpool on January 13, 1960. The O'Donovan family returned later that year to Limerick, where Dolores' sister Deirdre was born in July 1961.^[2]

On June 4, 1977, aged 17, she married 27-year-old local bricklayer Adrian McNamara. Between 1978 and 1992 the couple had six children, three boys and three girls. At the time of the lottery win, they also had four grandchildren.^[3]

At the time McNamara won EuroMillions, her husband was recuperating after coronary artery bypass surgery, while she herself was working as a part-time cleaning lady at Limerick Youth Centre, having recently left her job on a pharmaceutical factory production line.^[4]

[edit] Life after EuroMillions

When McNamara claimed her winnings, she issued a statement through her solicitor to say that "Dolores has lived a very happy and contented life among her family, friends and neighbours and it is her sincere desire that she and her family will return to normality as soon as possible. She is absolutely determined that her feet and the feet of her family will remain firmly on the ground."^[5] McNamara has continued to keep a low profile since her win, and has rarely spoken directly to the media.

For nine months after her win, McNamara continued to live in her modest Limerick bungalow. In April 2006, McNamara, her husband, and her two youngest sons moved to Lough Derg Hall, a €1.7 million, 6,000-square-foot hilltop home near the village of Killaloe, County Clare.^[6] Plagued by threats of abduction since the windfall, her family members have all been equipped with personal alarms, and her new home has been fitted with a major security system for their protection.^[7]

[edit] Family Controversies

Despite Namara's desire for privacy, the media has made much of the fact that her nephew Anthony "Noddy" McCarthy, son of her younger sister Deirdre, is one of five men convicted of one of Ireland's most notorious gangland killings, the January 29, 2002 torture and murder of Limerick crime boss Kieran Keane. McCarthy is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Dublin's Wheatfield prison.^[8]

Citing details from her social welfare records, a tabloid newspaper also accused McNamara of having committed welfare fraud by claiming unemployment benefits while she was actually working. When officials at the Department of Social and Family Affairs investigated the source of these leaks, they discovered that at least 72 civil servants had illicitly accessed McNamara's welfare records electronically in the days following her EuroMillions windfall.^[9] Although McNamara was never charged in connection with the alleged fraud, the civil servants concerned were reprimanded and the case occasioned public debate about the security of personal information stored in governmental computer systems.

McNamara's eldest son Gary McNamara has frequently featured in the news since his mother's EuroMillions win. In December 2005, An Garda Síochána questioned him about an alleged assault on Kieran Keane Jr., the teenage son of the crime boss murdered by his cousin Anthony McCarthy. Gary McNamara, who had a previous conviction for assaulting a 70-year-old garage owner,^[10] was released without charge after he claimed to have acted in self-defense amidst a fracas involving Keane Jr. and several other men.^[11]

In November 2007, angry that soccer club members' cars were blocking access to the site of his new home near Castleconnell, Limerick, Gary McNamara drove his pick-up truck onto the pitch, causing an eight-minute disruption to a teenagers' match. An Garda Síochána questioned him about the incident.^[12]

McNamara made headlines again after an incident on the evening of December 20, 2007, when he ran from his home, forcibly entered a neighbour's house, leapt from a second-floor window, and broke both of his legs. When questioned by An Garda Síochána at Limerick's Mid-Western Regional Hospital, McNamara claimed to have been been fleeing an armed kidnapper at the time. Although they found no evidence to support McNamara's account of events, Gardaí acknowledged that he had possibly mistaken the noise of exploding firecrackers in the area for the sound of gunshots.^[13]