The Wild Rover_ A Blistering Journey Along Britain_s Footpaths - Mike Parker [86]
In 1963, Horan became the curate – and shortly afterwards, the parish priest – at nearby Knock, transforming the rundown village into a shrine of global renown. In August 1879, the Virgin Mary, together with St John and St Joseph, had manifested in an apparition to a group of villagers on the gable end of their dowdy parish church. Knock had been a fairly low-level shrine ever since, but Horan was determined to elevate it to the Catholic Premier League, a name synonymous with Lourdes, Fatima and Medjugorje (incidentally, all destinations served by Knock Airport, alongside more secular shrines such as Gran Canaria and Alicante). A vast shed of a new church, dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of Ireland, and able to hold a congregation of 10,000, was built and consecrated in 1976. In a PR masterstroke, Horan succeeded in securing a visit to celebrate the centenary of the 1879 apparition by the charismatic new Polish Pope, John Paul II. The Monsignor expertly capitalised on the publicity, using it to add some considerable traction to the idea of a holy airport for Knock.
Buoyed by the post-Pope euphoria, the government swung in behind the Monsignor. The Minister of Transport, Horan’s old sparring partner Albert Reynolds, performed a sod-cutting ceremony on 2 May 1981 – the lump of stringy turf he pulled out, and the spade with which he dug it, are preserved with all of the solemnity normally accorded to a saint’s relics in the airport’s arrivals hall (arrivals corridor, if we’re being picky). An election soon followed, which resulted in a change of government and a change of heart regarding the airport; true to good Catholic teaching, the new government pulled out at the last minute.
The people of Knock were not to be ignored, however. Rallied by the man in a dog collar and hard hat, they poured on to the unpromising peaty peak of Barr na Cùige, levelled the ground and began to lay the runway themselves. On 25 October 1985, two jets took off in the only direction they knew, from Knock to Rome. More flights followed; not many, but enough to quieten the worst of the scoffers. On 30 May of the following year, 20,000 cheering Mayomen attended the airport’s official opening by the swaggeringly bent three-times Taioseach Charlie Haughey, who loved to play up his humble Mayo origins. Just two months later, Monsignor Horan died suddenly on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Not a great advert for the healing powers of Lourdes, but a terrific boost for his immaculately conceived airport, and it has gone from modest strength to strength ever since.
I’ve always loved the story of Knock Airport, one Monsignor against the world. It worked too: an utterly marginalised economy at the very edge of Europe was given a blood transfusion. In a Westport gift shop, I mentioned to the dotty lady owner that I was flying back home from Knock. ‘Ah, praise be for the airport,’ she wheezed back, as if breathing the Catechism. There have been numerous books about the story, and even a musical. Its inevitable title – though no less brilliant for that – is On a Wing and a Prayer. It can surely only be a matter of time until the Hollywood movie, its paddywhackery dial turned up to 11.
My plane swung in low over the squelchy sump of eastern Mayo and banked down on to the top of the hill. From the air, the terminal building looked like Lego, an impression that doesn’t shift much on entering it. Inside the main hall was a perky little blue booth, with a sign on top reading ‘KNOCK SHRINE OFFICE’. A few intriguing posters were displayed, telling punters that while it was all