Lottery winner to give away nearly all her fortune
Howard Lake | 5 August 2014 | News
A Northern Ireland woman who won £27 million in the Irish lottery has announced that she will give all but £1 million to good causes.
Margaret Loughrey, 48 years old, from Strabane has already given away £13.5 million to a range of causes and she told a Sunday newspaper that she will be using the other £12.5 million to help improve the economy and provide social amenities in her town. Strabane has one of the highest employment rates in the UK.
Loughrey was unemployed when she won the EuroMillions lottery in December 2013.
Recently, she tried to buy a vacant site to develop start-up businesses. Her plans also included a museum highlighting the area’s industrial heritage as well as football pitches and a bowling alley for local people to use.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, Loughrey has already purchased the historic Herdman’s Mill in Sion Mills, just outside Strabane, for around £1 million with plans to transform the 62-acre complex into a leisure and tourism destination.
“As soon as I won the money I said it would go for the good of the town,” Loughrey told the Sunday Life newspaper.
Photo: Euromillions lottery ticket by Katherine Kenny on Flickr.com
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.