Yesterday four US Army heavy-lift Chinook helicopters flew into Shannon Airport from Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel. They had arrived there from the UK.
We’ve also recorded eleven US Air Force C-17 Globemasters at the airport over the last 9 days. These are large, military transport aircraft, bringing in a lot of heavy equipment so that Trump and his entourage can spend time at his golf course in Doonbeg.
Shannonwatch will join with other groups this coming weekend to protest against the presence of US President Trump in Ireland.
The organisation and its members have protested the presence of every US president to visit this island since the start of the century, including Donald Trump in his first term. However the litany of crimes committed by Trump and his US administration are particularly reprehensible. Foremost amongst those, and with direct links to Shannon Airport, is the ongoing funding of and participation in apartheid Israel’s ethnic cleansing, occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people.
A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation aircraft registration N352BH was back in Shannon this week on its way to Delhi, and then on its return flight to the US.
This is the third time the Gulfstream IV has gone through Shannon this year for ICE. The other two were the chain refoulements of Palestinians to Israel in January and February (see our report here).
On this occasion the circuit started in Mesa, Arizona, which is the ICE Air Operations office headquarters and hub for ICE camps. The plane landed at Bangor International Airport, from where it flew to Shannon, arriving at 06:38 on Sept 1st. After 80 minutes it left, presumably after refuelling.
The following is a slightly modified version of a letter from Shannonwatch's Edward Horgan that appeared in the Sunday Independent of 2nd August.
Recent reports of fewer US troops use Shannon Airport cite figures provided by Shannon Airport stating that the number of US troops using it was 15,326 from January 1 to the end of June, a drop of 42% on the 26,340 who went through in the same period last year.
Friends of Shannonwatch and regular protesters at the airport are organising a Peace Camp at the airport on the weekend of July 4th and 5th. Here's are the details - come along if you can!
SHANNON AIRPORT 36-HOUR PEACE CAMP & VIGIL - SHANNON AIRPORT PEACE ROUNDABOUT
SATURDAY 4 JULY 6am until SUNDAY 5 JULY 6pm
We’ll be camping beside the Shannon Airport Peace Roundabout to mark the 2nd anniversary of the now weekly Shannon Sunday Vigil
Below are details of aircraft associated with the US military over the past week while the US are involved in wars and genocide in the Middle East. This makes Ireland complicit in war crimes. And it is why peace activists have been protesting at Shannon for over 25 years.
Omni Air N378AX landed at Shannon Airport about 22.08 on 25 June coming from Pope US Army Airfield Fort Bragg NC. It took off about 01.30 on 26 June and flew on to Sofia Bulgaria. It then flew from Sofia to south west Jordan. N378AX returned to land at Shannon about 04.10 on 27 June coming from Jordan and Sofia Bulgaria. It took off about 0541 and flew on to Bangor ME and to Austin TX.
The following talk was given by Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch to the 2026 Roger Casement Summer School at Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin on May 16th.
Hello all, and thanks to the Roger Casement Summer School for inviting me to participate in this event.
In my preparation for this I read a newly published book by Rory Carroll. Its title is A REBEL AND A TRAITOR. In my view it is unduly critical towards Casement but it does paint an interesting historical picture. I grew up a few miles from Banna Strand, so I always had a keen interest in the story of Roger Casement.
I will begin with a couple of quotes:
Edmund Burke is credited with saying: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"; I disagree with Burke. In my view good people don’t stand idly by and do nothing while evil is being perpetrated. Whatever you do in the face of evil don’t do nothing.
This letter by Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch was published in the Irish Daily Mail on 30 Apr.
A recent UN report found that more than 38,000 women and girls were killed in Gaza between October 2023 and December 2025. This figure does not include those buried under rubble, and deaths caused by hunger, diseases, and the destruction of vital infrastructure.
This event is supported by Shannonwatch.
Event: To remember Hind Rajab, the five year-old girl who was killed by Israeli soldiers in Gaza on January 29th 2024
Where: The Peace Roundabout at Shannon Airport.
When: 1-2pm, May 3rd 2026, which would have been Hind’s eighth birthday
In the midst of ongoing protests around the country, we held our monthly protest in opposition to the US military's us of Shannon airport today. The nationwide protests have been mostly about rising fuel prices, which are inextricably linked to the illegal US/Israeli war on Iran. More generally the impact of fuel prices on all our lives has a lot to do with the ongoing instability caused by war and the over-reliance on fossil fuels.
On March 13th, the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the economic cost to the US of the illegal war on Iran was running at $16.5 billion. And that was only after 12 days. In 2025, the Costs of War project at Brown University reported that from 2001 to 2019, the US spent over $2 trillion on the war in Afghanistan, and from 2003 to 2023 it spent and obligated over $2.89 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Syria.
These are all wars that Ireland supported by making Shannon Airport available to the US military since 2001.
