This article by Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch was published in The Clare Champion in January 2026.

In his article in the Clare Champion on 14 January, ‘Shannon Airport and Ireland’s Foreign Policy Debate’ Prof. Donnacha O’Beacháin asks an important question. How compatible is facilitating US military operations through Shannon Airport with claiming a form of neutrality grounded in international law? The answer is that international law on neutrality is clearly defined in The Hague Convention V on Neutrality 1907, article 2 of which states that: “Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power.” Successive Irish Taoisigh and ministers for foreign affairs are being disingenuous when they use such ‘administrative caveats’ to claim that Ireland is militarily neutral despite allowing over three million armed US soldiers to transit through Shannon airport.

In a week when US dictator Donald Trump was allowed to stop at Shannon Airport, we had multiple US military landings. All were approved by our Department of Foreign Affairs who seem to operate on the understanding that if the US Air Force, Navy or Marine Corp say they want to land at Shannon, they can do so.

The photo shows a US Navy Hercules C130 registration 16-5352 that landed at about 23.41 on Thursday 22nd Jan. It came from Bermuda. On Saturday 24th it flew on to Ioannis Daskalogiannis Airport in Chania, Crete. This is the location of a major U.S. and NATO military installation. 

At Shannon today we marked 24 years since the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention and torture centre. We also remembered Shannon Airport's involvement in the circuits flown by the rendition planes that brought prisoners there.

Guantanamo was set up under the George W. Bush presidency and has been kept open by every US president since. It was used to detain Muslim men and boys as part of the 'War on Terror'. Most of them were rounded up for bounties or kidnapped, and prisoners often faced rendition and torture at other CIA black sites before ending up at Guantanamo. 

This list has been compiled from Shannonwatch records of aircraft that landed at Shannon Airport. While almost all are US military or military contracted aircraft, we have also included other foreign military aircraft, most notably German Luftwaffe landings.

As far as we know, none of these aircraft have ever been searched or properly investigated by Gardai or Irish government officials.

While only some of the aircraft went on to Israel, most of the US military and military contracted aircraft were on their way to or from forward operating bases in or near the Middle East. These are used for operations in the region, including in Palestine.

Allowing these aircraft to land at Shannon Airport is in clear breach of Irish neutrality, the Genocide Convention and the Genocide Act, 1973.

Shannonwatch calls on the Irish government to categorically condemn the illegal invasion of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, by the US administration. Given this flagrant disregard for international laws and norms, we also call for an immediate suspension of the use of Shannon Airport as a transit hub for US troops and their weapons.  

Back at our October 12^th peace vigil at Shannon which was preceded by music and a Neutrality Hedge School organised by our friends from around Co. Clare, we saw two US Navy Hercules C-130's landing at Shannon Airport.

The first, with registration 16-5314, landed at about 12.50.

The second, 16-5159, landed just over an hour later at about 14.02.

As reported at the time, we asked the Gardai to inspect the C-130's. After much insistence by the inspector we spoke to that that the planes had permission to be at Shannon (which is a very different matter to them being compliant with national and international laws), they agreed to “investigate” the aircraft and to send us a written report.

Here's what we received from the inspector.

Today we received the sad news that our friend and comrade Margaretta D'Arcy has died. We will miss her unwavering and uncompromising commitment to peace and justice, and her determination to hold the authorities and politicians to account for their complicity in war.

Margaretta was 91 years of age and has been campaigning for peace and justice for most of her very long and productive life. In addition to her passion and dedication to peace and justice, she was a member of Aosdána: Here's what it says about her on their website: 

There were four aircraft associated with US military at Shannon airport this morning, Nov 23rd, being protected (not very successfully) by Gardai, Irish Defence Forces armed patrol, and airport security police. 

US Navy Boeing C-40A number 16-8980 landed at Shannon on Friday 21 Nov about 23.00. coming from Portsmouth, New Hampshire (PSM). It spent the overnight at Shannon on 21 and 22 Nov and took off about 09.20 on 23 Nov heading towards the Middle East via Athens.

A US Air Force Boeing C-40B also known as US Air Force 2, number 01-0040, landed at Shannon about 01.25, coming from Tampa Florida. It had the call sign SAM118. It took off about 03.05 and has since landed at Doha UAE.

On October 19th we had two US war planes at Shannon.

US Navy Hercules C130 number 16-5314 had to return to Shannon on 16 Oct due to a faulty engine. This was one of the planes we brought to the attention of Gardai on Oct 12th asking them to inspect it. 

At the peace gathering in Shannon on October 12th the Gardai were asked to search three different US military planes that had landed at the airport.