I (Steve) remember when growing up my father would talk about having “The Winning Ticket” to the Irish Sweepstakes (but he never did). The Irish Sweepstakes was the world’s largest lottery done once a year to raise monies for a local hospital in Dublin. Since the hospital was a catholic hospital, priests were asked to smuggle tickets out of Ireland to the United States because NO one would check a priest going thru customs for smuggled goods. The tickets were then sold in the States, and you bragged if you had a ticket. Every year my grandmother would have one for my father, but alas never a winner.
Now for the story to come full circle; the hotel we stayed in while in Dublin was directly across the street from the buildings that use to house that old hospital.
And now you know the rest of my story.