A priest, a runway, and the most chaotic Irish infrastructure project ever attempted.
Directed by John Blackman, "A Wing and a Prayer – The Story of Knock Airport" follows the efforts to construct an international airport at Knock in County Mayo during the early 1980s. Originating from a 1981 RTÉ News report, the film charts Monsignor James Horan’s campaign to build a full-length runway in a remote, rural location, documenting the political resistance, changing governments, and repeated setbacks that accompanied the project before the airport’s opening in 1986.
Direction
Blackman captures bureaucratic theater brilliantly
Writing
Horan's quotes are unintentional poetry
Director
John Blackman
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Horan reportedly threatened to lie down in front of bulldozers if construction stopped, making this possibly Ireland's first infrastructure project advanced by clerical civil disobedience.
The airport became known as 'Our Lady's Airport' and still operates today, a functioning monument to one man's refusal to accept geographic reality.
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