Monsignor James Horan

Life

James Horan was born on 5 May 1911 at Tooreen, Partry, County Mayo, the eldest of seven children of Bartley Horan, a farmer and builder, and Catherine Casey of Kilkieran. After studies at St Jarlath's College, Tuam, he entered St Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he took a first-class honours degree in Celtic Studies before being ordained for the Archdiocese of Tuam in June 1936.

He served in several Mayo parishes, displaying from the start an unusual gift for organisation, fundraising and rural community-building. Appointed administrator at Knock in 1963 and Parish Priest in 1967, he gave the next twenty years of his life to the Shrine. He oversaw a vast programme of works: the development of the apparition grounds, the construction of a great new church (dedicated in 1976 and later raised to the status of basilica) with a capacity of fifteen thousand, the rebuilding of the village's pilgrim infrastructure, and the centenary celebrations of 1979 that culminated in the visit of Pope Saint John Paul II on 30 September of that year.

The day after the papal visit Monsignor Horan launched what many called his most improbable project: an international airport on a hilltop at Barnacuige, near Charlestown. Critics ridiculed the idea of building a runway on a 'foggy, boggy site' in the west of Ireland; Horan travelled to America and Australia raising funds, organised a national lottery, and won the political backing of Taoiseach Charles Haughey. Ireland West Airport Knock was officially opened on 30 May 1986.

Exhausted by the effort, Horan died only weeks later, on 1 August 1986, while leading a pilgrimage to Lourdes. His remains were flown home to be the first coffin received at the new airport he had built. He is buried in the grounds of Knock Basilica.