Kathleen Spangler has had a busy year.
Last October, Ms. Spangler, a 29-year-old U.S. Marine Corps officer, applied for her Irish citizenship through lineage on her father’s side. It was approved a month later — fast-tracked because she was pregnant. In February, she, her husband Michael Spangler — 30, also a Marine officer — and their two toddlers transferred from their duty station in North Carolina to Dayton, Ohio. Three weeks later, Ms. Spangler gave birth to their third child. The couple started preparing for graduate studies in engineering.
Amid all these life-changing events, she only vaguely remembered buying a few tickets in an online raffle back in December.
With her new citizenship, she had been browsing Irish real estate sites on Instagram when she saw a post announcing the chance to win a house on 1.75 acres in County Leitrim, a pastoral corner of northwest Ireland. Tickets cost five British pounds apiece, and the site was promoting a buy-two-get-one-free offer. On a whim, Ms. Spangler entered, paying $12.67 for three tickets.
“And then I completely forgot about it,” she said. “Nobody enters these things really thinking that they’re going to win. At least, I don’t. But there’s always a chance, and that’s the fun part.”
Six months later, on May 22, she got a text from a friend asking, “By chance, did you win a cottage in Ireland?”
