Westmeath exile wins Spanish apartment in big GAA draw

A Westmeath native living in New York has won the lucrative top prize of a Spanish apartment in Westmeath GAA’s big fundraising draw.

John Moore, a Mullingar man now based in New York, emerged as the lucky winner when the draw was held at the Bloomfield House Hotel on Monday night.

In addition to the new two-bedroom apartment in the Murcia region of Spain, Moore also won €50,000 in cash as part of the prize.

Moore heads up the Moore Development Group with bases in New York and Florida. The extended Moore family are deeply involved in GAA activities on both sides of the Atlantic. The winning ticket was pulled out of the drum by 2022 Rose of Tralee and Rosemount woman Rachel Duffy.

The ‘Win a Home in Spain’ draw was the first major fundraiser in aid of Westmeath GAA’s plans to build new training facilities for county teams, generally referred to as a ‘Centre of Excellence’.

In advance of the draw, Westmeath GAA had set an ambitious target of selling 15,000 tickets at €100 each, but sold just over 9,000 in the end.

Despite the project making a profit believed to be in the region of €500,000, Westmeath GAA chairman Frank Mescall expressed disappointment with the level of sales before the winning ticket was drawn.

However, his comments on Monday night did not go down well with some club delegates, who showed their dissatisfaction at the Westmeath County Committee meeting held last night (Tuesday).

The others winners in the draw are as follows below.

Second prize: David Smyth, Co. Westmeath - two All-Ireland hurling final tickets, plus two All-Ireland camogie final tickets.

Third prize: Sophie Gerard, Co. Westmeath - two All-Ireland football final tickets, plus two All-Ireland LGFA final tickets.

Fourth prize: Thomas Cawley, Co. Sligo - two Westmeath GAA championship season tickets.