From the archive: No hedging their bets on an airport

It’s well known that our native hedgerows are home to an astonishingly diverse range of flora and fauna. But seriously? Two full-grown gents in suits and city shoes, nestled in the long grass, legs crossed, knee-deep in happy conversation? Now that’s a species you don’t see in the wild very often.

As for what their conversation might involve, well, it could just be something like: “What shall we do now? Put up a tent? Sing a few songs around the campfire? Hang on – I’ve got a better idea. Let’s build an airport!”

The gentlemen in question are – on the right – the then Minister for Transport, Albert Reynolds, and on the left Monsignor James Horan, who was determined to bring plane-loads of pilgrims to the nearby Knock Shrine. Thus was conceived the plan to create an international airport in the unlikely surroundings of the townland of Barnacoogue in Co Mayo.

Our photo was taken at a ceremony to turn the first sod in the spring of 1981 and, it must be said, reflects the “unlikely” more than the “international airport” side of the story. The photographer might as well be saying: “Barnacoogue? Balderdash.” Behind the heads of the two men, two parallel lines of unprepossessing barbed-wire serves to further underline the scepticism.

But if you build an airport, people will come. Despite the curmudgeonliness of a subsequent Minister for Transport, Jim Mitchell, who famously denigrated Knock as “an ill-advised project, far distant from any sizeable town, high on a foggy, boggy hill”, it soared into the schedules in 1985 and has made a name for itself in the years since.

Actually a number of names, taking off as Knock International Airport (KIA) and briefly taxi-ing through Connaught Regional Airport and Horan International before landing on Ireland West Airport Knock.

But never mind all that. What I want to know is, when these two stood up again, did they have soggy, damp grass-stains on their bums? Or was it a case of another miracle at Knock?