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Shannon Airport helps the Emerald Isle punch above its weight.
Analysis Based on factual reporting, although it Incorporates the expertise of the author/producer and may offer interpretations and conclusions.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy met Taoiseach Micheál Martin at Shannon Airport on 27 February. (Photo by Ukrainian Presidential Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Languages: Deutsch
Shannon is a quiet, single-runway airport in a town of just 10,000 people in the west of Ireland – and a jewel in the country’s diplomatic crown.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was there last Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Ireland’s prime minister – or Taoiseach – Micheál Martin there two weeks before. Zelenskyy also met Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan there in 2023.
Make no mistake: Shannon Airport, about 25km west of Limerick, is not a go-to destination for the world’s great and good. But it is a convenient refuelling stop for dignitaries crossing the Atlantic, which over the decades has given Irish leaders golden opportunities for impromptu meetings.
“It is an inexpensive, quiet airport to fly into – easy to get into, easy to get out of, not a lot of commercial traffic,” explained Ben Tonra, professor of international relations at University College Dublin. If anyone important stops to refuel, “then an Irish Taoiseach might take an opportunity to have a have a quick chat,” he told Euractiv in an interview.
It doesn’t always work out, however.
When then-Taoiseach Albert Reynolds heard that Boris Yeltsin would make a stop at Shannon in 1994, Reynolds cut short his visit to Australia and flew all the way back around the world, landing just a few hours before the Russian president.
But Yeltsin, an alcoholic, never got off the plane and left the Taoiseach standing awkwardly on the tarmac. Recently-declassified documents show Irish diplomats had anticipated the risk Yeltsin might be “worse for wear” and instructed an Irish Army band to be prepared to abandon the usual military honours at short notice.
US military flights
The airport has drawn controversy as well as hilarity, because the very features that appeal to diplomatic travellers also make it an ideal refuelling spot for the US military.
For example, planes carrying US troops – usually charter flights rather than military aircraft – routinely refuel at Shannon.
“You’ve got troops coming in, and they’re very often in their fatigues, roaming through Shannon duty free, picking up their bottles of whatever they’re picking up,” Tonra said. “It’s a big economic boon to the airport.”
But those flights attract protests. “People have been arrested and prosecuted for going in and damaging US military aircraft,” Tonra said.
Demonstrators object that “Ireland, notwithstanding its neutrality, is aiding and abetting the US in its military operations overseas,” he explained. A related concern is what else is on the planes besides soldiers. “Under Irish legislation, no carriers can land with munitions.”
The US says it complies with all the rules – but the Irish government simply takes the Americans at their word, Tonra said.
“Nobody is investigating – going on the planes and checking whether there are munitions,” said the professor. Questions such as whether the soldiers’ weapons are in the hold or are shipped separately frequently come up in Ireland’s national parliament, he added.
Aviation pioneer
Shannon played a major role in the history of transatlantic aviation, as well as in Ireland’s economic history.
It first opened in 1942, when aviation technology had hitherto limited transatlantic flight to flying boats – large seaplanes that could land on water. Foynes, another small town on the Shannon Estuary, was the main terminal for such voyages in the 1930s.
The first transatlantic proving flights began landing on the runway at Shannon immediately after World War Two.
As the most westerly airport in Europe, Shannon quickly emerged as a hub for transatlantic travel, at a time when aeroplanes lacked the range made possible by modern jet engines.
The introduction of jet aircraft in the 1960s diminished Shannon’s importance for commercial travel, as transatlantic flights could reach major European cities without refuelling.
But Shannon Airport retains diplomatic significance today precisely because it’s quiet and out-of-the-way, making it a more convenient place to refuel on longer-haul flights than the busy aviation hubs of London, Paris or Amsterdam.
In 1975, Soviet carrier Aeroflot established a base there, allowing flights from the Soviet Union to refuel in a non-NATO country before crossing the Atlantic. While Irish neutrality during the Cold War provided a useful political framing, the low cost and convenience of Shannon probably had more to do with it, argued Tonra.
Economic experiment
Shannon Airport is also something of a pilgrimage site for travelling Chinese officials, who took inspiration from its early experiment as a low-tax Special Economic Zone.
It became the world’s first duty-free airport in 1947. In 1959, the Irish government created the Shannon Free Zone – a laboratory for the low-tax, high foreign investment economic strategy that decades later would help make Ireland rich.
“We reversed economic course in the late 1950s from a policy of really hardcore protectionism to export-led and foreign direct investment-led development,” Tonra said. “Shannon Airport was an integral part of that overall strategy,”
Yet despite the Shannon Free Zone’s significance in economic history, it never led to the development of the community around Shannon, which remains small, rural and remote.
“Sorry for the pun: the airport never took off in the way that it was originally designed to do, as an industrial and commercial hub, because it’s not a natural city” said Tonra. Most of the nearby industry and commercial activity is in Limerick, which Shannon now serves as the city’s main airport.
[OM]
Languages: Deutsch
Updated: 17-03-2025
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