Generous Newry couple win £1MMillion on EuroMillions

Former teacher Colin Bell, 64, and wife Eithne, 61, a retired nursery school worker, are founders of The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust which helps repatriate the bodies of Irish people who have died suddenly overseas. They were settling in for a quiet night in front of the telly when their evening took an unexpected turn.

“I was watching the early evening news with Eithne when the EuroMillions numbers flashed up on screen,” said Colin. “I remembered that I’d bought a ticket for the draw, but that I hadn’t checked my numbers so I took out my wallet, went online and was disappointed to see that I hadn’t matched any numbers. "

“However, when I checked the unique Millionaire Maker code I was totally floored to see that it matched my code.”

In disbelief, Colin turned to his wife to tell her that they had just become millionaires. “I told Eithne that I thought we had just won £1MMillion and she laughed, thinking that I was joking. But when I repeated it and she saw the look on my face, she soon realised that I was being serious.

“Once the shock passed, we decided to go to my daughter’s house, Ciara, who lives a couple of miles away, to get her to check again as we just simply couldn’t believe we’d won.”

"When Colin and Eithne explained to their daughter why they were there she was overjoyed. “After checking Ciara started dancing around the room and whooping. We hadn’t realised until that point just how numb we both were, but the news finally started to sink in.”

Colin and Eithne who have six children decided to contact them all to tell them the amazing news. Colin explains.

“We told our son Brendan when he arrived home from work and then we gave Eamon, who lives in Australia, a call and they were both totally astounded. Then we contacted our two sons who live in Dublin, Sean and Conor. All of their reactions were just brilliant. Conor even said, ‘How do you expect me to go back to work after hearing this news!’ – so it was smiles all round.”

As this was all unfolding, Colin and Eithne’s daughter Maeve, who didn’t know about the life changing news, was making her way back to Northern Ireland from a two year stay in Australia.

“My wife and I picked up Maeve from Dublin Airport the next day. We said nothing of our news until we had her safely in the car, but when she heard we had to pull over as she was in total shock and needed some air. Her reaction was priceless. In fact we’ll never forget how each of our kids reacted – we just never expected any of this to happen.”

The couple have plans for home improvements and a few treats but most of the win will be life changing for their children.

“My wife would love a sun room extension on the house and a new car and I plan to buy a couple of 10 year Premium Level Tickets for Croke Park,” Colin explained. “But we’ll spend most of it changing the lives of our children – that will bring us so much joy.”

Colin and Eithne are the founders of The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, which was set up in June 2013. The Trust has helped repatriate the bodies of hundreds of Irish people who have died suddenly overseas since its formation in June 2013. The Trust was formed after Colin and Eithne lost their 26-year-old son Kevin in a hit-and-run accident in New York.