Tag Archives: Shannon airport

FOLLOWING the death of Winnie Mandela on Easter Monday, former airport police officer John O’Halloran recalled a stopover she made at Shannon Airport in 1990. It was shortly after her husband’s release from 27 years of imprisonment, and the visit was quite unexpected. “At the time this photo was taken she was due to come to Ireland about a month later on an official visit,” says John. He ended up with the first photos of Mrs Mandela taken here with her husband. “He [Nelson Mandela] was on a tour of a handful of nations around the world. He had gone from Johannesburg, arrived in Rome, stayed there for a while and he was going to Ottowa in Canada. “On the way they were running low on fuel and they diverted into Shannon unexpectedly. On the day I was in charge of Airport Police and I didn’t call anyone in, we looked after them while they were there.” John added, “She …

Thirty Irish tourism companies, including the Cliffs of Moher Visitor Experience, Doolin2Aran Ferries, Shannon Airport and Shannon Heritage, joined Tourism Ireland recently at the largest travel trade fair in the world, ITB in Berlin. Germany is the third-largest market for tourism to the island of Ireland and in 2017 we welcomed around 660,000 German visitors. Tourism Ireland recently launched a new strategy to boost tourism from Germany, setting out challenging and ambitious targets, which will see the island of Ireland welcome 800,000 German visitors per year by 2021, representing growth of +20%; and will see revenue generated by holiday visitors increase by +27%, to €375 million per year. ITB (Internationale Tourismus-Börse) is the biggest travel promotion of the year, attracting over 160,000 visitors from 180 countries across the world. Of these, about 109,000 are trade visitors – including leading tour operators, travel agents, airlines, travel media and bloggers – not just from Germany but from all over the world. The …

Dail deputies, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly have said  they are looking forward to testing out the new intruder radar detection tracking system being put in place to protect the 12.5km perimeter fence at Shannon Airport. The two made their comments with confirmation that Shannon Airport is set to splurge a maximum of €150,000 on the first phase of the new intruder detection tracking system at the airport perimeter fence. The perimeter fence, erected around the 968 acre airfield, has been scaled a number of times this century by anti-war activists angry over the use of Shannon by the US military. The fence was most famously scaled by Deputy Wallace and Deputy Daly in July, 2014 when the two used a rope ladder to make their incursion into the airfield. They were fined a total of €4,000 after being convicted of breaching airport regulations when entering a restricted area of Shannon airfield. However, the two did not pay the fines …

WHILE the worst of the snow is now over, driving conditions around Clare are still very poor in many areas, while a Met Éireann status orange warning remains in place until 6pm. The warning, which was issued at 6am, states, “Some snow this morning, widespread treacherous surfaces due to ice and lying snow. Rain will begin to spread from the south today and this will start the melting process with potential flooding. Updates will follow.” Shortly after 10am this morning Clare County Council tweeted that its crews are currently clearing streets and footpaths in the county’s main towns, while its trucks are out gritting roads. It has also said that the Active Ennis Leisure Complex, Lees Road, Cloughleigh Astro Turf and Kilrush Sports Complex will be closed all day. There was disappointment for a number of families after it was announced that Ennis CBS confirmation had been postponed. All Clare District Soccer League games that were fixed for this weekend …

CLARE has experienced its most severe snowfall in decades, with virtually all parts of the county badly affected. Commercial life in the county was almost non-existent today, with many businesses closing and few people leaving the safety of their homes. Shannon Airport is closed until tomorrow morning, while the annual Ennis Book Club Festival, which was due to be held this weekend, has been cancelled. This afternoon all but a handful of businesses in Ennis town centre were closed. Very few vehicles made their way into the central parts of the town, and some of those that did were clearly struggling with the conditions. With inches of snow lying on the footpaths it was also very difficult for pedestrians. “I’ve never seen the likes of this before,” said Councillor Joe Cooney, of the conditions around East Clare. “A number of roads are impassable today and will be tonight as well,” he added. In the west of the county things are …

SHANNON Airport is closing down from 6pm this evening until 5am on Saturday, due to the weather. A spokeswoman said: “Due to full flight cancellations by our scheduled carriers, and in light of the Red weather alert for the area, Shannon Airport has decided to close the airport from 6pm this evening. The airport will reopen, weather permitting, at 5 am on Saturday, March 3.” “Shannon Airport remains fully operational as of now, with a number of scheduled flights taking off, due to the efforts of airport staff working through the night in challenging conditions to keep the runway operational. However, a number of airlines, including Aer Lingus and Ryanair, have now made the decision to cancel services in the interest of safety. “We strongly advise passengers intending to fly from, or travel to, Shannon Airport on Saturday to contact their relevant airline or check their website before travelling. She added, “We will post regular flight updates on our twitter account …

Ryanair has announced two new Shannon routes to Bristol and Liverpool, and added more flights to Manchester, which will operate from May 17 until the end of October, as part of its summer 2018 schedule. These new routes and extra flights will add 60,000 additional seats to Ryanair’s schedule from Shannon, and go on sale later today (Friday) on the Ryanair.com website. The new routes from Shannon include: Bristol (twice weekly) and Liverpool (three weekly), while flights to Manchester will increase from four to six weekly). Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said, “These new routes and additional frequencies will add a further 60,000 seats to/from Shannon.

“CHRISTMAS is definitely my favourite time of year to come home; there’s a different atmosphere, it’s really family-oriented,” said Aileen Griffin on Wednesday afternoon, just after arriving in Shannon Airport. The Kilmaley woman was one of the thousands of emigrants returning to Ireland this week, mainly from the UK, the US and Australia. Aileen was greeted by her father, Joe, in Shannon. “He’s very diligent. He always does the airport pick-ups and he carries the luggage as well,” she joked. Peggy Hennessy had come in from Kilkee to pick up her son, Patrick, who is based in New York, where he works for an airline and is part-owner of a bar. Unlike many Irish people in America, he has legal status there. Peggy was very pleased to see him. “Of course, it’s brilliant to get him home. He shouldn’t have had to go in the first place, they shouldn’t have to emigrate in the first place. So many youngsters are …