TWO Lotto jackpot wins were scooped up within the past six months in the "world's luckiest village" – but it has a sinister side too.
While Duleek, Ireland has seen lottery success, it hides a dark secret.
Up to twenty missing cats have been reported from homes in Duleek, Co Meath, in the weeks since Christmas.
While some returned home badly injured, most have disappeared without trace.
The village has even been dubbed a "Bermuda Triangle for cats" – and locals are worried the moggies are being used as live bait in organised dog fights.
It comes after Senator Lynn Boylan recently raised awareness of the issue of kittens being used in dog baiting.
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She said: “Suspicions were raised regarding the adverts on the noticeboards when the same mobile phone number and/or handwriting was appearing regularly.
“Unfortunately, it is believed that the individuals were seeking kittens for barbaric dog baiting.”
Duleek has hit headlines for its dark secret – but life there is certainly pretty good, as two lucky lottery tickets were sold in the village.
Both winning tickets were even sold within a few hundred metres of each other, the BBC reported.
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The latest lucky ticket – which won €3.9m (£3.4m) – was bought at Shane Bowe's Eurospar store.
He describes the big win as the "icing on the cake", having taken over the business last year.
"On Monday there was lots of talk in the village then we got a phone call to say we had sold the winning ticket," he says.
"The excitement was just phenomenal."
He added: "All the papers are trying to say it's the luckiest village in Ireland so everybody needs to go buy their tickets here."
Last October a winning ticket worth €8.9m (£7.8m) was purchased at Seamus Lowthe's Londis store.
In 2019 Kathleen Sheridan, who is originally from north Dublin but lives in Duleek with her husband, was part of a winning family syndicate.
They won €175m (£154m) from the EuroMillions in 2019 – the biggest pay-out in Irish National Lottery history.
Her Duleek-native sister-in-law also won £600,000 in the lottery in the late 1980s.
Fellow resident Aidan Coleman also struck lucky over the years as part of a local syndicate that recently shared a €20,000 win among its 10 members.
Aidan said: "There's something in the water… we've had a lot of winners here."
It's not the first time lottery wins have hit the news.
Six neighbours scooped £30k each after winning their local Postcode Lottery.
The winner was announced as the winner of a People’s Postcode Lottery prize on Saturday, March 25 in Hevingham, Norfolk.
It comes after a young woman who won £40K on a scratch card revealed a certain catch meant she walked away with considerably less… and it was all gone within a year.
Content creator Sydney, who goes by Sydney Kidney Bean online, won big over a year ago on a scratchy gifted by her mum.
Meanwhile, a former conman who won millions on the lottery scooped another jackpot win – but this time did something unusual with the money.
Kursat Yildirim, 42, who has done time for robbery and fraud, bagged an £8.72million lottery jackpot in Germany on September 24 last year.
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