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Graham Norton's pad and a trip to space: what else could Ireland's newest EuroMillions winner buy with €250m?

Graham Norton's pad and a trip to space: what else could Ireland's newest EuroMillions winner buy with €250m?

Irish Times4 days ago

While €250 million might sound like an eye-watering, life-changing amount of money, it is all relative and we should note that it would barely cover 10 per cent – or not even one floor – of the new
national children's hospital
.
And
the latest EuroMillions winner
would only be able to buy 703
State-approved bike sheds
or 20 houses on Ireland's leafiest of roads.
But what else might the holder of the luckiest of tickets consider spending their money on?
Emma Monaghan, the spokeswoman for the
National Lottery
, advised them to 'have a cup of tea' and try to remain calm.
READ MORE
It is sound advice and while the winner is having that tea they might allow their mind to wander in the direction of what comes next.
First on the agenda is likely to be a holiday somewhere lovely.
Now, obviously, the days of three-star aparthotels in Salou are over and the winner will be looking at somewhere considerably more fancy.
The good news is the villa at Sandy Lane in Barbados is available for two weeks from next Saturday.
The 'stately five-bedroom' place covers almost 700sq m and is 'nestled amongst tropical gardens'. it comes with its own pool – obviously – and an 'oversized Jacuzzi'.
It is catered by a resident chef and there is complimentary laundry, airport transfers, champagne and canapés and free golf.
Well, we say free but with the stay costing €9,646 per night, it is anything but free.
A two-week break there will cost just over €135,000.
That does not include the cost of getting there.
The winner's days of flying
Ryanair
might well be over although
Michael O'Leary
seems happy enough to fly with his own airline and he has more than a trifling €250 million to play with.
Four first-class return flights from London to Barbados will cost the winner just under €30,000.
The gang of four will have to make it to London. One imagines they will not be rubbing shoulders with the rest of us and will probably use the Dublin Airport Platinum suite, which will cost them €475 each.
For that money they get to chill out in a private lounge and eat free grapes and biscuits while waiting for their flight to be called. When it is, they will be brought through private security screening and driven in a shiny black Mercedes to the door of the plane just as it is ready to take off.
If we allow just €800 for four flights to and from London the total cost of this fanciest of holidays comes in at €167,700, which doesn't even make a dent in the jackpot win.
In the longer term, the winner might consider travelling like other members of the super-rich gang to which they now belong.
To be admitted to this gang – which is made up of just 1,600 people in Ireland – they need to have a net worth of €200 million.
If they want to invest in a Gulf Stream G800 – which has four distinct living areas including an executive work space, a lounge area with seats that transform into flat beds, a full kitchen and a master bedroom with a queen-sized bed and full en-suite bathroom – they will need to spend just over €70 million of their jackpot.
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The price does not include jet fuel, crew or staff.
If the winner, upon their return to Ireland, would like another trip – one that is out of this world – they might consider following in the footsteps of
Katy Perry
and going into space on the Amazon founder
Jeff Bezos
's ship, although they will have to pay about €25 million for the privilege.
And if
the reaction
to Perry's jaunt is anything to go by, it is not a move that will be welcomed by anyone other than, perhaps, Bezos.
The bad news for the winner is that despite the size of the jackpot, most superyachts are beyond them, with prices for the biggest and poshest of boats floating at about the €300 million mark.
They could, however, probably rent one that an oligarch could be proud of for no more than €1 million. Per week.
Holidays aside, the winner will soon have to turn their attention to where they live long term.
According to myhome.ie, the most expensive home for sale in Ireland right now is on Shrewsbury Road in Dublin 4, with an asking price of €11 million.
Once they have secured that home, the winner might like to have homes farther afield – maybe a brownstone in New York or a villa in the south of France?
The most expensive property on the New York market is in what the internet tells us in the 'landmark Steinway Tower'.
The quadplex spans more than 1,100sq m over four floors and has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, multiple lounges and a huge terrace 'with sweeping views of Central Park and both rivers on either side of Manhattan'.
The price? A snip at $110 million (€96 million). That is obviously insane money but the winner might instead consider Graham Norton's New York pad, which is
on the market for a mere €4.94 million
.
Meanwhile, a 'superb contemporary property, recently renovated, with an elevator and a pool' near Nice is on the market for €3.3 million.
Built on two main living levels, the property has 350sq m of living space and a large open kitchen, as well as four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a shower room on the upper floor.
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There is, we are told, a 'magnificent rooftop terrace for beautiful receptions'.
Beautiful friends to attend the beautiful receptions are not included in the price.
Then, of course, there are the cars you will need.
You could get yourself a Ferrari LaFerrari – so fancy they named it twice – for €6 million, although we did have a look at it and we'd be concerned the boot wouldn't accommodate a big shop from Lidl, so that might have to be the treat car.
A Rolls-Royce Spectre EV will cost in the region of half a million euro while a high-spec Range Rover will cost you the guts of €150,000.
The cost, meanwhile, of fully vaccinating a child in the developing world for the first two years of their life varies depending on where they are but, according to Unicef, it the average is about €63.
That means the winner could pay for the vaccination of nearly four million children and still have a life-changing €10 million to spend on themselves.
Their choice.

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TV guide: The Bear returns, and the other best new shows to watch on RTÉ, Disney+, and Netflix this week
TV guide: The Bear returns, and the other best new shows to watch on RTÉ, Disney+, and Netflix this week

Irish Times

time36 minutes ago

  • Irish Times

TV guide: The Bear returns, and the other best new shows to watch on RTÉ, Disney+, and Netflix this week

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Irish influencers trolled on Tattle life: ‘They said I'm a bad mum. That I'm ugly. They wrote my address on it'
Irish influencers trolled on Tattle life: ‘They said I'm a bad mum. That I'm ugly. They wrote my address on it'

Irish Times

time2 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Irish influencers trolled on Tattle life: ‘They said I'm a bad mum. That I'm ugly. They wrote my address on it'

Earlier this week, Co Antrim entrepreneurs Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 (€352,000) in libel damages following a defamation and harassment lawsuit over abusive comments posted on gossip website Tattle Life. Tattle Life describes itself as a platform for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'. Users post messages and discuss influencers and others with an online profile, many of whom complain they are being trolled. A number of Irish influencers have been the subject of negative 'threads' on Tattle Life. The judge in the case, heard in Belfast , said it had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm on others by allowing the anonymous trashing of people's reputations. The site was revealed on Friday, June 13th, as being operated by UK national Sebastian Bond. Julie Haynes' Instagram account Twins and Me has 218,000 followers. She first became aware of Tattle Life when one of her own online followers sent her a link to a comment posted about her on the site, she says. READ MORE 'I was sent a screenshot and then I went on and I was scrolling through the threads, and I was like, what the hell? ... They were saying stuff like I take drugs.' None of it was true, she says. 'Writing stuff like that is absolutely horrific,' Haynes says, but it didn't stop there. Haynes' father died during Covid. 'We had five people at the funeral. Me, my mam, my brother and my twins. And we had a camera set up in the church because we were allowed to do that at the time, and you just basically livestreamed it and family and friends at home were able to tune in. The link then was put up on Tattle Life and every single one of my trolls tuned in.' Her young son needed to go to the toilet during the funeral, and so she brought him. Comments followed that she had 'walked out of the church' and that the funeral was like 'an episode of EastEnders'. 'Every single move I made' was commented on, Haynes says. 'She's drunk, that's why she's run out of the church. She had to go get sick.' Julie Haynes and her children Erin Rose and Fionn Haynes says she has seen comments stating that she's 'a bad mum. That I'm ugly'. Her mother had breast cancer two years ago and had a mastectomy. Haynes shared her mother's experience with her followers, but because her mother's recovery was deemed quick by some she was accused of making the story up 'for content'. 'They wrote my address on it, saying that 'I'd love to go down Julie's house in X and kick ... her. They write about my children all the time. What they call my kids is absolutely horrific, they screenshot them. I'm so, so upset.' [ Women in Ireland increasingly subjected to online hate and misogyny, groups warn Opens in new window ] Haynes says she has considered taking her children offline. 'No one should be calling these children those names,' she says. Her social media presence is an income source. 'Only for my social media, I'd have nothing,' she says. 'I'm a single mum … I do all this for my kids. And the only way I can go for [a] mortgage is by working. To earn a couple of bob I do my social media but these trolls, then, are trying to ruin it.' For brands looking to work with influencers, 'the first thing you do is check Google and the first thing that pops up when you put in my name is all these Tattle threads'. Louise Cooney has 250,000 followers on Instagram. She became aware of Tattle Life around the time of the Covid pandemic. 'It has completely changed my life for the last five years. It's something I've never spoken about. It's incredibly traumatising and hurtful. Some of the things that have been said and written, and not having control over your digital footprint in that way, is really upsetting,' says Cooney. Louise Cooney: 'It's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules' 'It's made me less trusting of people,' she says. 'It makes me second-guess people's intentions. And it makes me question everything that I do, how I share.' She says it's good to be cautious about sharing. Cooney stays away from the site as much as possible. She says she doesn't want the upset and stress it causes her to have an impact on her toddler son. 'Once or twice I've had a weak moment ... All it does is upset me. Why do I look? But then, if you know it's there and other people can read it, sometimes curiosity can get the better of you,' she says. 'We grew up in a generation ... we're the first ones doing this, and it's like a free-for-all because no one has put in rules.' Cooney says some people who believe that comment posted on the internet is anonymous and that they can't be traced perhaps don't realise that 'technology is advancing all the time. And of course it can be traced.' The experience has had an effect on her mental health: 'I definitely experience anxiety because of it.' Sisters Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone have, combined, almost 66,000 followers on Instagram and run the Mums on the Run group on Facebook. Sue Jordan and Corrina Stone Jordan first became aware of Tattle Life a few years ago when someone sent her a link to a thread, after she had been on the Elaine show with presenter Elaine Crowley on Virgin Media. Jordan had kept her job, working in frontline homeless services, very separate from her online presence, never speaking about her work due to its sensitive nature, she says. 'So to have people go on there and say this is what I do, keep an eye out for me, it put me in danger … I never shared that information ever. How dare anybody do that? But then it evolved into calling me an alcoholic. No such thing, never was. This is stuff that could actually affect my real-life job.' She describes what happens on Tattle Life as 'systemic harassment and abuse'. Tattle Life has had a 'massive' impact on Stone. She says there have been posts saying her children have a 'horrendous upbringing' and that they 'hate' her. 'They tried to savage my kids, my older kids, their dress sense, their fashion sense, their choices – everything,' Stone says. She says she has mostly stopped attending events. 'I think it's because I don't want to put myself out there any more to be slapped down every time. It's constantly in your head.' 'I've stopped going out generally. Other than school runs and groceries ... I've a tiny friend circle,' she says.

Iron Maiden at Dublin's Malahide Castle: Stage times, set list, ticket information, how to get there and more
Iron Maiden at Dublin's Malahide Castle: Stage times, set list, ticket information, how to get there and more

Irish Times

time2 hours ago

  • Irish Times

Iron Maiden at Dublin's Malahide Castle: Stage times, set list, ticket information, how to get there and more

After 50 years in the business, there is no sign of Iron Maiden slowing down any time soon as their European Run For Your Lives tour kicked off last month in Budapest. The heavy metal band will take to the stage at Malahide Castle this Wednesday for an unforgettable night as part of the band's 27 stadium, festival and arena shows around Europe. This tour will mark 50 years since bassist Steve Harris formed Iron Maiden in 1975. The band have promised fans the 'most spectacular and elaborate show ever' with the set list spanning their nine studio albums. Iron Maiden, made up of Steve Harris, Dave Murray, Adrian Smith, Bruce Dickinson, Nicko McBrain and Janick Gers, will give a 'once in a lifetime experience' to their concert-bound fans. READ MORE When and where is it? Iron Maiden play Malahide Castle in Dublin on Wednesday, June 25th. What time should I arrive? Gates are at 5pm, meaning the show is expected to start at 6pm. Stage times are not yet available, so keep an eye on Iron Maiden's social media for updates. The concert should be finished by 10.45pm. Who is playing? Support on the night comes from Halestorm and The Raven Age. Iron Maiden will headline. What songs will Iron Maiden play? Below is a recent set list from their gig in Helsinki. Murders in the Rue Morgue Wrathchild Killers Phantom of the Opera The Number of the Beast The Clairvoyant Powerslave 2 Minutes to Midnight Rime of the Ancient Mariner Run to the Hills Seventh Son of a Seventh Son The Trooper Hallowed Be Thy Name Iron Maiden Encore Churchill's Speech Aces High Fear of the Dark Wasted Years Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python song) How do I get to and from the gig? Though it is possible to drive, you are encouraged to use public transport to get to and from Malahide Castle. Allow yourself plenty of extra travel time, as traffic delays and congestion are inevitable. Bus: Dublin Bus operates services to Malahide village from the city centre. The H2 and 42 routes connect with Malahide, while the 102 provides a direct route from Dublin Airport. Marathon Coaches are offering private, direct return buses to the concert from Northwall Quay Bus Stop 7623. JJ Kavanagh Event Coaches are also offering private coach services from locations including Limerick, Portlaoise, Kilkenny and Carlow. Irish Concert Travel offer a similar service from the likes of Donegal Town, Sligo, Longford and Galway. Train/Dart: Malahide train station is about a 15-minute walk from the concert venue and connects to city centre dart locations including Grand Canal Dock, Pearse, Tara Street and Connolly. The Dart usually runs extra services for concerts in Malahide, with the last train leaving the station sometime between 11.30pm and midnight. Car: There is limited parking at Malahide Castle, but it is possible to drive to and from gigs. You are recommended to book parking by downloading the Evntz app and clicking 'parking' on the page for Iron Maiden. Recommended car routes are: Via the M50: From Dublin city centre, west and south of Ireland, exit the M50 at Junction 3 (signposted M1 Belfast/Airport), continuing on to the R139. At the roundabout, take the second exit, continuing on the R139 for 2.6km. Turn left on to Malahide Road/R107. Continue straight for 4.2km, then take a right on to Back Road. Follow signs for car parks on your left. Via the M1: From the north of the country, exit the M1 at Junction 4 (signposted R132 Swords/Malahide/Donabate). Keep right, merging on to the R132. At the roundabout, take the second exit, keeping on the R132. At the next roundabout, take the second exit, again staying on R132. Take a slight left, merging on to Swords Rd/R106, and continue for 2.9km. Turn right on to the Dublin Road/R107, continue straight for 700m and then turn left on to Back Road. Follow signs for car parks on your left. Are there any tickets left? A very small number of tickets are left so act quickly if you want to bag them. Tickets can be purchased through Ticketmaster and cost €91.30 each. Download your tickets to your phone in advance, in case there are internet or connectivity issues at the site. Screenshots may not work on the day, as Ticketmaster often use live or dynamic barcodes that update regularly. What's the story with security? Attendees under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult to be permitted entry. You should bring an official form of identification – a passport, Garda age card or driving licence. Bags will be searched on arrival, and you are advised not to bring a large bag to avoid the possibility of a lengthy delay or even refusal of entry. It is prohibited to bring alcohol, umbrellas, garden furniture, flares or professional recording equipment in with you. What does the weather look like? Weather is forecast to be largely settled next week, with less rain than usual and above average temperatures according to Met Éireann .

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