History
The airport was officially opened on 30 May 1986, however the first commercial flights operated seven months earlier on 25 October 1985 in the form of three Aer Lingus charter flights to Rome. The opening followed a long campaign by Monsignor James Horan. The airport was intended to bring employment to an impoverished corner of Ireland, as well as allow pilgrims to visit the nearby Roman Catholic Knock Shrine which commemorates an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879.
Ryanair commenced flights to London Luton during 1986, with a route to London Stansted added in 1992. By 1988, over 100,000 passengers had passed through the airport. In 1995 Aer Lingus commenced flights to Birmingham.
On 1 June 2003, hundreds of people gathered at Knock International Airport to view a Boeing 747 land with 500 returning pilgrims from Lourdes.
Read more about this topic: Ireland West Airport Knock
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The greatest horrors in the history of mankind are not due to the ambition of the Napoleons or the vengeance of the Agamemnons, but to the doctrinaire philosophers. The theories of the sentimentalist Rousseau inspired the integrity of the passionless Robespierre. The cold-blooded calculations of Karl Marx led to the judicial and business-like operations of the Cheka.”
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)