Sister Kathleen is one-in-a-100m . . . thanks to divine intervention
Added on December 15, 2004
Wednesday December 15th 2004
SISTER Kathleen Murphy is in the money - but she won't be keeping it.
The 50-year-old nun from Co Galway has won ?100,000 for being Ryanair's 100 millionth passenger.
But she has no doubt what really got her the award - "divine intervention". And no doubt what to do with the cash - she has given it to charity.
Sister Kathleen, a Mercy nun based at St Catherine's Convent in Edinburgh, said she is delighted to be able to hand over the entire cheque to her order, whose mission provides charity to poor and socially disadvantaged women.
The nun was on her way home last October to visit her ailing 90-year-old mother in the village of Claremadden near Ballinasloe, Co Galway. She had booked a return flight to Dublin on Ryanair and was just about to leave the convent when she got a call from the airline, informing her she had been drawn from a shortlist of ten people who were among 700,000 passengers eligible to win the prize for being the budget airline's 100 millionth passenger.
"I was totally bowled over," she said yesterday. "But I never won anything in my life, so I said let's go for it."
But to win, she had to fax some information to Ryanair and the convent fax machine wouldn't work. "I was about to say it wasn't meant to be, then I thought why not try to use the fax machine at the Jesuit house?"
She dashed over, but no-one was there. She was again about to give up, when she decided to give the convent fax machine one more try.
Miraculously, it worked.
"I'm convinced it was divine intervention," she said. "The fax machine wouldn't work and then suddenly it did."
Not only did she win the prize, but her mother - whose health had been rapidly deteriorating - made a full recovery.
Allison Bray
? Irish Independent
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/ & http://www.unison.ie/