Qualla: Ireland West Airport https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:12 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ireland West Airport https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport Ireland West Airport: Introduction https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit John Lucas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The site, the experts said, was too boggy and too foggy. The fog was real - the airport sits at over 200 metres on rolling moorland 5.6 kilometres south-west of Charlestown, where the western Atlantic weather rolls in and settles. The bog was real too. But Monsignor James Horan, parish priest of Knock, did not particularly care. He wanted an airport that would land pilgrims within easy bus-distance of the Knock Shrine, and he had a saint's confidence that one would be built. Five years after he secured the first government grant, on 25 October 1985, three Aer Lingus charter flights for Rome left a runway in the County Mayo bogland. Horan, then seventy-four, was on the ground watching. He died less than a year later. His funeral was held inside the terminal of the airport that the Irish government renamed in his honour: Horan International.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ireland West Airport: The Priest with a Runway https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit Pampuco, CC BY-SA 4.0. Horan became parish priest of Knock in 1963 and inherited a shrine that was attracting pilgrims faster than the local roads could deliver them. He oversaw the construction of the Basilica of Our Lady, Queen of Ireland - a circular church designed to hold ten thousand worshipers, ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-the-priest-with-a-runway.mp3 0:06 2 full Ireland West Airport: From Pilgrimage to Package Holiday https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit Pampuco, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1988, more than 100,000 passengers had passed through the terminal. Pilgrims from the United States, Britain and the Irish diaspora came first; tourists and emigrants followed. Aer Lingus opened a Birmingham route in 1995. Ryanair arrived, then Lufthansa, then Flybe. The airpo...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-from-pilgrimage-to-package-holiday.mp3 0:06 3 full Ireland West Airport: Sometimes Foggy, Still There https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit Pampuco, CC BY-SA 4.0. The early critics were right about the fog. The Atlantic mist rolls in often enough that Ireland West installed a Category II Instrument Landing System on runway 27 in 2009 specifically to keep operations open in low visibility. They were right about the bog too - the drainage an...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-sometimes-foggy-still-there.mp3 0:06 4 full Ireland West Airport: The Wing and the Prayer https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit Pampuco, CC BY-SA 4.0. Christy Moore wrote a folk song about the airport's construction - he called it Knock Song, and it captures the bemused affection many Irish people feel for the whole improbable project. A documentary called On a Wing and a Prayer followed the story. The musical of the same name ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-the-wing-and-the-prayer.mp3 0:06 5 full Ireland West Airport: Final Approach Over the Moor https://qualla.com/ireland-west-airport/ Photo credit Pampuco, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, the airport reveals exactly what its critics warned of. The runway runs east-west across an upland of bog and rough pasture. Lakes and small loughs scatter the landscape on every side. To the north lies Charlestown; to the south, twenty kilometres away, the village ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/9/d/ireland-west-airport-wp/gc9d-ireland-west-airport-final-approach-over-the-moor.mp3 0:06 6 full