Inside tragic life of £27m EuroMillions winner – and her devastating warning the day she scooped jackpot
A EUROMILLIONS winner who scooped £27MILLION before it “destroyed” her life died alone and frail.
Margaret Loughrey, 56, bagged the fortune in November 2014 after buying a ticket as she walked back from a Job Centre.
At the time she had been living on just £58 a week.
But just eight years later, Margaret was found dead at her tiny £130,000 bungalow in Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
Chillingly, brother Paul Loughrey revealed he had issued a warning the day Margaret won the jackpot.
In the days after her death, he explained: “The lottery win done none of us any good, let me tell you.
“The day that she won it, I said, ‘Life is never going to be the same, this is going to destroy some of us here’.”
Speaking to MailOnline following his sister’s death, Paul revealed Margaret had been “very sick” for a number of weeks and rarely left home.
He said his “very frail” sister had also “refused” to go to the doctors or hospital.
Margaret’s life from her win up to her tragic death in September 2021 saw her world change forever.
After matching five numbers and two lucky stars, Margaret said she had plans “to make a lot of people happy”.
Dubbed ‘Maggie Millions’, the kind-hearted Ulster woman gave £1million to her sister and each of her four brothers.
And she handed out thousands to others.
She said at the time: “No point having £27million 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.”
Having netted exactly £26,863,588.20, Margaret splashed out on a raft of properties, including a pub, houses and a mill.
She snapped up newly-converted high-end Ballycolman Avenue house, called The Barn, which Margaret later began renovating in 2019.
And she threw up a six-bay showroom to keep classic motors opposite, storing a vintage motorbike with sidecar, a VW Campervan, a classic VW Beetle and a vintage Land Rover jeep.
A £70,000 Jaguar XJ50 was also kept at the property.
But just four months after her win Margaret was sectioned after being told she was “a danger to herself and others”.
She left hospital but her plight sadly continued as her life became blighted by mental health problems.
In 2015, she was ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service after she assaulted a taxi driver by smashing his glasses and SatNav.
Three years later, she had to pay £30,000 to a former employee for bullying and firing him on a “vindictive whim”.
Her mental health deteriorating, her weight at one stage plunged to five-and-a-half stone.
Margaret later said the win had “sent her to hell and back” even though she was living on benefits and unemployed at the time.
She also claimed she was left with just £5million in 2019 and said she had been targeted by thieves.
The millionaire 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.”
Margaret had just finished her dream home when she was found dead in her bungalow in September 2021.
She never got the chance to live in her new home.
Following Margaret’s death, moving tributes praised her for being “well known and did a lot of good charitable work”.