ABSTRACT
Estuary in de Valera’s East Clare constituency, was chosen as the site for Ireland’s transatlantic base.
Given that it would be a number of years before this area could be dredged and ready for flying boats and for runways to be constructed for landplanes, a decision was taken to establish the European terminal of the transatlantic flyingboat service at Foynes in the interim. Foynes, a small village and port further west on the south side of the estuary, had an already-established infrastructure of fuel storage tanks associated with its port. A deep anchorage area was naturally sheltered by Foynes Island and the full width and length of the estuary presented itself for take-off and landing. The route was to fly from Britain to Foynes to Gander or Botwood in Newfoundland and from there to New York. De Valera included a clause in the Ottawa Agreement of 1935 that ‘subject to force majeure’ all eastbound and westbound aircraft ‘shall stop at the Irish Free State Airport’ (Quinlan 1990: 43). At this time, given the stage of technical advancement, there was no option but for the flying-boats to stop at Shannon for refuelling prior to or following the 2,000 mile Atlantic crossing, thus there was no sense of the future political tactics that this clause would enable. In this way, two tracts of watery land, rural and remote on both banks of the Shannon estuary, were launched into becoming an epicentre of modernity and global connectivity.
