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- The AirportIreland West Airport Knock (formerly known as Knock Airport) is one of the great against-the-odds success stories of modern Ireland. The idea of an airport for the Knock region was mooted as early as 1935, and Father James Horan was part of a delegation from the Knock Development Association which, during the 1960s, sought in vain an airstrip to cater for pilgrims. When the project got going in the wake of Pope John Paul II‘s visit to Knock in 1979, it was much derided, called a ‘white elephant’ and was the subject of much political controversy. The proposal got government backing in 1980, and the first sod was cut by Minister for Transport Albert Reynolds the following year, but many obstacles had to be overcome before the first commercial flights took off in 1985. The airport was officially opened in May 1986, months before Monsignor Horan, the airport’s driving force, died in Lourdes. Within two years, annual passengers numbers had exceeded 100,000, and that figure had doubled by the turn of the century. The first snow and ski charters took off from the airport in 2004, and the airport reached the milestone of over half a million annual passengers the…
- Mgr James HoranThe driving force behind the establishment of the airport, James Horan (1911-1986) was born in Tooreen, in the parish of Partry, in west County Mayo, the son of a farmer and tradesman. He was the eldest of seven children – four girls and three boys. He attended primary school in Partry and won a scholarship to St Jarlath’s Diocesan College in Tuam, County Galway. In 1929, he went to Maynooth College to train for the priesthood, and was ordained in 1936. He spent three years in Glasgow, in the parish of Dumbarton, and in 1939, he returned home to become Chaplain to the Franciscan monastery in Ballyglunin, in the Archdiocese of Tuam. After only two months there, he was transferred to Tiernea in the parish of Carraroe in County Galway, where he became fluent in the Irish language. In 1944 he returned to his native Mayo, working as a curate in Tooreen in the parish of Aghamore. He was responsible for the introduction of electricity to the area, and was probably best known at that time as the promoter of Tooreen Hall. After 14 years in Tooreen, Fr Horan left in July 1959 to go to his next parish, Cloonfad.…
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