"IRISHMAN'S LUCK."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 71, 24 March 1934, Page 15

"IRISHMAN'S LUCK."

WHAT TO DO WITH MONEY?

"Irishman's luck!" Only two tickets in art unions, and one of them a first prize-winner! Such is the good fortune of Mrs. Patrick Bropliy, Pungarehu, who has now been identified as the winner of the £2000 prize in the Golden Chance art union, drawn at Wellington on Wednesday. Mrs. Brophy is the wife of a well-known coastal farmer and landholder, the mother of nine children, and she has "not the faintest idea in the world what she is going to do with the money."

The winning of a £2000 prize may be all \ eiy well, but Mrs Brophy has a strong' aversion to the publicity attendant upon such a performance. She has declined to be interviewed, but when a Taranaki "Herald" reporter called at the Brophy home he found her daughter more ready to answer a few questions. "So far as I know," said Miss Brophy, "mother lias taken only two tickets in art unions. This ticket was bought in New Plymouth from Miss. G. Williams about a fortnight before the closing date. Mother took the ticket under the name 'Australia' for no particular reason. No; she had no idea or expectation of ever visiting the country."

Mrs. Bropliy, continued her daughter, had no idea what she would do with the money.

"Take a trip," suggested the reporter. "Possibly. But I don't think so," replifd Miss Bropliy non-committally. "Buy a new car?" "We've not long got one." "Buy some more land?" 1 "I think we've got enough now!"

The reporter could think of no more likely avenue of expenditure, bo Miss Brophy suggested, ingenuously, that the mouey "will help to keep a family of nine during the winter." Mrs. Bropliy was visiting New Plymouth recently, when she heard that "a New Plymouth man had won the art union." On her return home Mrs. Brophy was told by her daughter that the holder of the ticket had used the nom-de-plume "Australia." "Oh!" said Mrs.' Brophy. "I think chat must be me." So Mr. and Mrs. Brophy returned to New Plymouth to lodge the £2000 ticket in safe keeping and to make arrangements for the remission of the prizemoney. • This is the first large art union prize to have found its way to North Taranaki for some years, and Mrs. Brophy's success is a nine days' wonder locally. Mr. and Mrs. Brophy have been residents of Pnngarehu for many years, where Mr. Brophy is one of the largest suppliers to and chairman of directors of the Cape Egmont Dairy Company. He is one of the largest landholders in the rich coastal farmlands district.