Sheila was the Duty Manager in the hotel that day and we 'jobbed' her to pull the 1st prize out of our raffle drum - €200 - and she pulled ticket number 386 which belonged to a delighted Roger C , from Bluebell , in Dublin , who was present with his son , Mark. Both lads had just popped-in to the hotel for lunch, as they were on their way home from a job in Carlow and were thrilled to have won the prize , which they split between them. Mark then pulled the second prize (€100) which was won by Waterford girl Clair D on ticket 397 - Clair was eventually located in the other lounge and didn't believe she had won ("....sure I wouldn't win if I had the only ticket in the draw.." ) but loudly changed her mind when presented with the envelope! When Clair had calmed down we asked her to pull the 3rd prize - €40 - and it was ticket 629 , won by Conor, who had bought it from one of our resident sellers , 'Bottler' , who then pulled ticket 245 from the drum for the 4th prize (€20) and that was won by a 'Hells Angel'-type (!) , Stevo , from Ballyfermot, whom we then asked to put a gloved hand into the drum and pick the 5th prize which, with a grunt and a burp, he did - and Myles K , who had been sold ticket 349 by our Kevin, was the winner of that €20 prize.
Myles then pulled out prize number six, which went to Seán M in Clondalkin, on ticket 537. Declan from Mullingar won our second-last prize - €20 - with ticket 325 and Colm R , who had been sold ticket number 550 by Anto, walked away from our table with the last prize, €20 richer. It was a relaxing and more enjoyable than usual raffle but we know not to get to like rare occasions like that too much , and certainly not to expect more of the same for the next such event - it clashes with the 108th Ard Fheis of Republican Sinn Féin which is being held in Dublin on that same weekend. Here's hoping for an absence of sporting fixtures for that weekend at least....!
Anyway - we'll be back here tomorrow night (Wednesday 17th October 2012) with , amongst other posts, a commentary on soccer.....!
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
