THE WINNER OF the record €250 million EuroMillions jackpot bought their ticket in Clifford’s Centra at 91 Shandon Street in Cork city centre.  

The National Lottery revealed the name of the store this morning, which is on the north side of the city, after confirming that the ticket was sold in Cork yesterday. 

The lucky individual represents Ireland’s 18th EuroMillions jackpot winner since it began in 2004, with Limerick’s Dolores McNamara scooping a nifty €115 million.

The winning ticketholder made contact with the National Lottery yesterday “after days of speculation”, it said.

📞🤩 The moment Clifford’s Centra, Shandon Street, Cork City, found out their shop sold the winning #EuroMillions ticket of €250 MILLION! #ItCouldBeYou

18+ Play Responsibly Play for Fun pic.twitter.com/7e2gAIt3J5

— The Irish National Lottery (@NationalLottery) June 20, 2025

Ted Clifford, the owner of the shop, expressed his adulation.

“We are delighted to have sold this golden ticket to one of our customers,” he said.

“We already sold a winning Millionaire Raffle ticket on New Year’s Eve just gone, worth €100,000, so that must have been the start of our winning streak.”

Clifford also appeared on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this morning and described the heightened excitement stirring locally.

It’s definitely going to be the hottest day of the year in Shandon Street.

He said the National Lottery told him yesterday that his store had sold the winning ticket, adding that there is a “great buzz” among the staff at the shop. 

Clifford, who is a third generation owner of the Centra, said his store also sold a €100,000 ticket to a local person on New Year’s Eve last year. “I think this is when our luck started for the winning streak.”

There is a €25,000 cap on the prize money for the shop that sells the winning ticket. Clifford said he and the staff there are going to have “a big celebration”. 

Asked if he had any idea who bought the winning ticket, he said: “We have no idea. It’s a busy shop. A lot of people in and out buying National Lottery.

“I send my warmest congratulations to the winner and their family, and hopefully they’ll have good fortune with their money.”

The €250 million jackpot was won by the mystery winner on Tuesday.

Asked if he was the Cork winner by reporters as he arrived in Armagh for the North South Ministerial Council today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed he was not. 

⁉️🤣'Was it you who won the EuroMillions, then Taoiseach?'

💰Taoiseach @MichealMartinTD sharing a joke about winning the EuroMillions.

The holder of the winning ticket for a EuroMillions jackpot of €250m (£213m) has come forward, and it is NOT him...

Chief Reporter… pic.twitter.com/3wXV1NEoou

— Cool FM News (@newsoncool) June 20, 2025

“I was on the One O’Clock news yesterday and actually had checked the ticket, and I was crestfallen before the interview started when they announced that the winner had come forward,” the Fianna Fáil leader joked. 

Northern Ireland deputy first minister Emma Little-Pengelly said she was sure that if he had won, he would have come today anyway. “Absolutely,” the Taoiseach said. 

National Lottery CEO Cian Murphy said the win is “historic” for Irish lottery players.

On Today with Claire Byrne this morning, Murphy spoke about the process that took place after the Irish win was announced on Tuesday evening. 

“Hundreds of thousands of Irish players checked their tickets, and one of them got that message on the app, which was, ‘you’re a big winner, contact the National Lottery’,” Murphy said.

He said the National Lottery has ways of verifying the ticket without actually seeing it.

“There are identifying features on the ticket which are unique to a winning ticket. When somebody calls us, because obviously we do have people calling us who don’t have a winning ticket, we’re able to verify that pretty quickly over the phone,” he said. 

“We knew within a few minutes of the call from the winner that this was, in fact, the winning ticket.”

On how the money is transferred to the winner, Murphy said anybody who is the of a winning ticket has to sign the back of the ticket, and they have to nominate a single person who will receive the money into their bank account.

“We write the cheque to that named individual. That gets signed by me and another member of the team. It’s exactly the same as any cheque people would have seen, except in this instance, it’s €250 million,” he said.

“You take that to your bank account, and I would imagine it’ll take them two or three days, and then you open your bank account, and you’ll see €250 million.”

Murphy added that it is important that someone who wins a life-changing amount of money get independent legal and financial advice, which is something he said National Lottery advise them of early on in the process.

- Contains reporting from Keith Kelly