Tipperary Grandmother Goes on a €23,000 Winning Streak
A grandmother living in Co. Tipperary, originally from Cork, bagged herself a €23,000 Winning Streak bonus when she appeared on the National Lottery TV game show on 29th February.
Rita Ryan from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary has won €23,000 on last Saturday’s (29th February 2020) National Lottery Winning Streak Game Show. Pictured here at the presentation of the winners cheques were from left to right: Marty Whelan Winning Streak co-host; Rita Ryan the winning player; Jim O’Connor the National Lottery and Sinead Kennedy Winning Streak Game Show co-host. The winning ticket was bought from The Crescent, Thomas Street, Clonmel. Co. Tipperary. Pic: Mac Innes Photography
Rita Ryan from Clonmel, Co. Tipperary was the last person in Ireland to know that her name was pulled out of the Winning Streak drum to appear on last week’s show. She was out for the evening with her husband Liam at a play (The Loving Will) in a local theatre and both took the decision to leave their mobile phones at home. The couple went for a drink after the play, which they thoroughly enjoyed, and returned home close to midnight completely unaware of what had happened just a few hours earlier.
Rita put the kettle on as soon as she walked in the door and picked up her phone. She was shocked at the amount of missed calls and text messages on her phone. It became quickly apparent that she was going to be on Winning Streak!
Rita, who was born in Cork, has been married to Liam, from Waterford, for 45 years and the couple live in Tipperary. They have two daughters, Aoife and Finola who are married to Brendan and Niall respectively and she is grandmother to three grandchildren: Conor and Ella, who were all in the RTE audience cheering her on last weekend. Her other granddaughter Ciara (2) watched from home.
Now retired, Rita was a nurse in South Tipperary General Hospital. She retired in 2016 and has more spare time to play a bit of golf. She is a member of Slievenamon Golf Club and her group play a round every Tuesday. She is also a member of the 91 Bridge Club in Clonmel.
This Saturday was the second time that Marty Whelan handed over prizes to the Ryan family as many years back, on RTE’s Live at Three show, Rita’s husband Liam won a holiday to Florida and was on the phone speaking to Marty on the show. Funnily enough Liam’s brother Tomas has lived in Florida for many years so the couple were able to have a family reunion.
The Winning Streak National Lottery TV game show is co-presented by Marty Whelan and Sinead Kennedy and features some perennial favourite games including Play or Pay, Roll for Riches, WinFall and Electric Dream – where one player will win an electric car worth €25,000.
As ever one of the lucky five players will get the chance to spin the wheel and win up to €500,000. An exciting element of the show is that one €100,000 segment will be added to the Grand Prize Wheel every show if less than that amount was won in the previous show, improving players chances to win a massive prize.
Winning Streak scratch cards are available in more than 5,800 National Lottery retailers all over the country. In addition to the chance to appear on the Winning Streak TV game show if you get three stars, players will also be in with a chance to win some great cash prizes up to €5,000. The odds of winning a cash prize or a three star prize for those who purchase a Winning Streak scratch card is 1 in 1.86. All players who purchase a scratch card can send their stubs into the National Lottery using grey envelopes, available in all National Lottery agents, where each week on the show, a player will be drawn as the winner of a Luxury Cruise for two valued at €5,000.
Nearly 30 cent in every €1 spent on Winning Streak and all National Lottery games goes back to Good Causes in the areas of sport, youth, health, welfare, education, arts, heritage and the Irish Language. In total more than €5.6 Billion has been raised for Good Causes since the National Lottery was established 32 years ago. In 2019 alone, €250 million was raised for local Good Causes in communities across Ireland.
