The Irish government approved 99.8 percent of applications for civilian planes carrying weapons – and usually US soldiers – to land at Shannon over the past seven years.
Transport ministers Eamon Ryan and Darragh O’Brien haven’t refused a single application to land at Shannon Airport with weapons onboard since January 2024, according to data published by the Department of Transport.
The transport minister gave 2,359 clearances under carriage of munitions of war legislation from 2019 to 2025 and only refused five applications to land in Clare.
Though Fianna Fáil minister Darragh O’Brien’s department doesn’t publish the nature of the weapons or final destinations, most of the flights transport armed US soldiers to and from the Middle East.
The Ditch reported last year that a US-military chartered civilian aircraft landed at Shannon Airport with weapons on its way to an Israeli military base, and later revealed that taoiseach Micheál Martin lied about the nature of these flights.
More than 11,000 exemptions to carry munitions of war through the state’s territory or on Irish-registered aircraft were granted over the past decade with just one percent of applications refused.
The Department of Transport declined to comment.
