An Irish woman who said her “life was destroyed” after winning a €31m (£27m) lottery fortune has been found dead.
The body of EuroMillions winner Margaret Loughrey, who hit the jackpot eight years ago, was discovered at her home in Strabane, Co Tyrone, on Thursday.
A PSNI spokesman said: “Police received a report of the sudden death of a woman at the Ballycolman Lane area of Strabane on September 2.
“A post-mortem is due to take place but, at this stage, the death is not being treated as suspicious.”
Emergency services attended the 56-year-old’s home around 10.30am but Ms Loughrey, who lived alone, died at the scene.
Two years ago, she admitted her huge win had changed her life drastically but not always for good.
She revealed how the endless cash had “sent her to hell and back”.
Ms Loughrey added: “Money has brought me nothing but grief. It has destroyed my life.
“I have had six years of this. I don’t believe in religion but if there is a hell, I have been in it. It has been that bad. I went down to five-and-a-half stone.”
She also claimed in 2019 she had only around €6million of her fortune left after being the victim of numerous thefts.
She said: “I regret winning the lottery, of course I do. I was a happy person before. I am a human being and all it has done is destroy my life.”
Life changed utterly for her after she matched five numbers and two stars to scoop €31,460,000 in November 2013.
On that day, jobless Ms Loughrey revealed how she had filled in an application form for a position with a charity.
But her life changed forever just hours later when she checked her EuroMillions numbers.
She revealed at the time: “Got up on Wednesday morning, checked the ticket, just had a notion, checked the ticket and that was it – five numbers, two stars, happy days.
“I never panicked. I’m level-headed and I know I’ll think it all through and do the right thing, see to the right people.
“It’s in my name at the minute, it’s £27m, it’s not going to be mine, it’s going to be spread around.
“No point having £27m and being lonely.
“That can’t make me happy, that can only make me happy that everybody else’s happy and so far everybody is absolutely delighted.”
Following her windfall she bought a string of properties including houses, a pub and most famously Herdman’s Mill in Sion Mills which she hoped to transform into a tourist hotspot to create jobs.
Ms Loughrey said more than once that she would never leave Strabane, which has one of the worst deprivation levels in the North and high unemployment.
In 2014, she told how she planned to give away most of her fortune, keeping just over €1million for herself. She added: “I know what it’s like to have nothing.
“That’s why I’m giving it away – I can’t miss what I never had. I spent half of my adult life unemployed and the other half on the minimum wage so I know only too well how hard things can be.”
Strabane councillor Paul Gallagher knew Ms Loughrey before and after her win.
He described her as a woman who was generous to a fault but also whose life came to a “sore ending for someone who was so lucky – and so unlucky."
He told the Irish Mirror: “She never asked to be a millionaire. It was thrust upon her but she was very generous with it.
“I knew her before she won the money and I knew her after the money.
“She made all her family millionaires and there was a couple of very close friends, they became millionaires. She was very supportive of her neighbours and they all got a generous donation.
“After that she made charitable donations to local as well as national charities.”
Mr Gallagher said Ms Loughrey was a “private person” who never wanted any publicity even for the good she had done.
He added: “She kept herself to herself and even when she was about town you wouldn’t have known it was her.”
He said she put a lot into her dream home which tragically she won’t get to enjoy.
Mr Gallagher said: “It was called The Barn. She bought it and modernised it into a massive barn.
“It took a lot of work and has only recently been finished.
“The house adjacent to it became available so she bought it and has been living in the bungalow.
“She would have been there daily supervising the builders.
“Unfortunately she hasn’t lived to enjoy it. Dying so young, it’s a sad story.”
Ms Loughrey’s rollercoaster ride armed with her huge bank balance brought her lots of good times, but almost as many bad experiences.
People who knew her said she gave a lot of her money away but never spoke of her donations to many local charities and groups.
Having spent half of her life jobless, she tried to build a business park for the people of Strabane and Sion Mills and create up to 80 jobs on the older Herdman’s Mill site, but the plan never took off.
At the time she said: “Everyone has the right to work for a living, to support their families, to buy their own home, to run their own business – these are things everyone should have a right to do. People just need to be given opportunities.”
Ms Loughrey also spoke about building up to 150 affordable houses for local people and hoped to build a 50m Olympic-size swimming pool in her home town which never came to fruition.
One of her most trying times came following a battle with former personal assistant Patrick Breslin.
Mr Breslin took Ms Loughrey to court after she sacked him while allegedly mocking his Catholic religion.
He also claimed she let herself into his property and moved about his religious statues. In December 2018 a tribunal found Ms Loughrey had discriminated against Mr Breslin on the grounds of his religion and sex.
Mr Breslin was eventually awarded £30,000 (€35,000) which Ms Loughrey appealed but the compensation was upheld.
She also fell out with her local cricket club in Sion Mills after she purchased Herdman’s Mill for £1m (€1.17m) in 2014.
The team played their games on the 60 acres of grounds attached to the mill and Ms Loughrey locked them out of their pitch.
She made up with the cricket club and later came to an agreement to allow it to use the pitch again.
The rags-to-riches winner was ordered to complete 150 hours of community service by a judge after admitting assaulting a taxi driver in May 2015.
Ms Loughrey admitted she had been drinking with friends before attacking the driver and causing damage to his glasses and sat nav.
The judge said he believed it was a one-off incident. He fined Ms Loughrey £559 (€650) for the damage and also ordered her to pay £200 (€233) to the victim as compensation.
