A lucky lottery player has won over a quarter of a million Euros after finding her lost ticket in a rubbish bin.

The Galway woman had embarked on an intensive search for the EuroMillions ticket after seeing the shop in which she purchased it pictured in the local paper as having sold a winner.

After searching all over her house the single mother eventually found the €258,528 ticket at the bottom of her bin, the contents of which were set to be taken to the local dump the next morning.

"I never play EuroMillions so I don't know what came over me that day – I just asked for a ticket," said the anonymous winner.

"I forgot all about it until a few weeks later when I saw a picture of the shop in the newspaper and the story that a winning EuroMillions ticket was sold there.

"I searched the house, top to bottom – no ticket. I looked in the recycling bin -- no ticket. Then I searched the normal bin."

"I went all through the bin to the very bottom, and there it was – covered in onions, olive oil and garlic but still in one piece."