BY the time Pope John Paul II flew out of Shannon on October 1, 1979, around 2.5 million people had seen him, including many thousands from Clare, and the Irish State had successfully negotiated a massive security headache.

It was just over a month since the death of Lord Mountbatten and sectarian tensions in the North were close to boiling point.
A security risk assessment carried out shortly before the Pope’s arrival, which was released from the National Archives this week under the 30-year rule, concluded that if would-be assassins were determined enough, they might succeed.
“It must be borne in mind, however, that if desperate persons plan to kill the Pope, then no security measures which the gardaí could implement would guarantee the Pope’s safety. There is no such thing as absolute security,” the archives stated.
While it was felt that a sniper attack was the biggest potential risk to the Pope’s life, it was decided not to use bullet-proof glass.
Due to the security situation, the Papal party did not go to the North, although the State papers show there was some concern that such a move would be interpreted as a victory by Ian Paisley, who had been a vocal opponent of the visit.
The Pope’s flights through Dublin and Shannon resulted in Aer Rianta spending more than €124,000 across the two airports. Aer Lingus, which flew the Pope to and from the country, estimated its costs at around £120,000.
The Department of Finance estimated that the total outlay of its visit would be between £2.5 million and £3 million on State and semi-State bodies.
The Pope’s visit provided some of the most enduring images of Ireland in the 1970s and was perhaps the high water mark for the Church in Irish public life.
The visit was particularly significant for the Mid-West and while the only time the Pope spent in Clare was when he was flying out of the country, tens of thousands made their way to Limerick and Galway to see him. The combined attendance at these two events was around 685,000.

Difficulty over US troops at Shannon

THERE’S nothing new under the sun, it’s said, and a difficulty that exercised diplomatic minds in 1979 seems to bear the maxim out.
State papers showed that ­officials were faced with a ­dilemma that the country has wrestled with during the past decade – does allowing US troops to use Shannon compromise neutrality?
In 1979, the US requested that 12,000 troops be allowed to stop at Shannon as they went home from a NATO exercise in Germany.
According to the papers, mandarins in the Department of Foreign Affairs believed the Government had two choices. One was to refuse the request as magnanimously as possible, while the second was to actually allow it.
However, if the latter course was taken, it advised “checking the US embassy fairly courteously but firmly on the issue of principle in order to ensure that it does not become a general practice”.
The officials were critical of the Americans, who approached the affair very informally and they found the US embassy “had taken too much for granted”.
The stopover did eventually go ahead in the early part of 1979, despite misgivings about neutrality.
“If it were allowed even on a one-off basis there would probably be some public controversy or questioning about our position on NATO and it would be well to be prepared for this,” one official stated.
Thirty years on, people still claim that the revenue troops bring to Shannon eclipses all ­other arguments and in 1979 it was noted that the operation would bring in around IR£250,000.
Officials also warned that refusing the request could result in difficulties for attracting US investment into Ireland, another argument that will be familiar to anyone who follows the debates about the current US use of Shannon.

No golf trip for Hillery

SPANISH POINT native Paddy Hillery shouldn’t accept any invitation to America unless it came from the White House and he certainly shouldn’t be going over to play golf, according to officials in 1979.
An invitation came from the Lt Governor of Massachusetts for the president to play in a tournament from August 16-18, in a phone call to the Irish Consul General in Boston.
A communication setting out details of what was involved arrived at the Department of Foreign Affairs but a senior official in the Taoiseach’s department was firmly against the golf trip.
“It seems to me to be extraordinary that the consul general in Boston should recommend favourable consideration of a suggestion that the President should go to America to participate in a golf tournament and it is even more extraordinary that the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs should envisage that the President might accept such an invitation,” he stated in a memo.
He also recommended that the President not take up any US invitations unless they came from the country’s head of state.