They said it couldn't be done, but now it's Ireland's fastest- growing regional airport. Rosita Boland spends a day at Knock airport

Now everyone is happy and the miracle it's complete
Father Horan's got his auld runway - and it's eighteen thousand feet
All sorts of planes could land there, of that there's little doubt
It'll be handy now for George Bush to knock Gadafi out
From Fatima to Bethlehem and from Lourdes to Kiltimagh
I've never seen a miracle like the airport up in Knock
- Christy Moore

Air traffic controller Siobhán Morley has just seen off the 10.55am Ryanair flight to Luton from Ireland West Airport Knock. Morley almost certainly knows this runway better than any of her peers know their respective runways. How many other air traffic controllers can say that they have - several times - been in a car that legally raced up and down their runway at 100 miles an hour?

"Mgr Horan was fairly creative in his fundraising," Morely laughs. "There's photographs of us all at home in cars on the runway."

Morely is referring to the late Mgr James Horan, who campaigned and fund-raised tirelessly for an airport to be built at Knock to serve the people of the north west, and those who had emigrated from it to England. One of his more imaginative fundraising ideas was to charge people to drive at top speed along the runway, before it opened. Thousands did. Morely's family was among them.

The airport at Knock was officially opened on May 30th, 1986, by the then Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey. It had been operating commercially since the previous October, when three Aer Lingus aircraft brought pilgrims to Rome.

The building of the airport at Knock was extremely controversial. It was the 1980s, a time of recession and unemployment. In 1984, Jim Mitchell, then minister for communications, described the airport site as "far distant from any sizeable town, high on a foggy, boggy hill". He said that the scheme to build an airport there was ill-advised and that it would not receive any more government funding, having already got £9.8 million of taxpayers' money for development.

The shortfall for the estimated £13 million needed for the airport was made up by fundraising and donations, from people across Ireland and from overseas. When Mgr Horan died, just three months after the official opening of the airport, mourners covered the bottom of his waiting grave with notes and coins during the night.

Michael Finlan of this paper wrote: "The spontaneous act of throwing money - close to £400 - into the grave, which could not be ascribed to any local tradition . . . was saying, 'We'll finish your airport for you'."

Last year, Knock had half a million passengers, making it the fastest growing airport in Ireland. It currently operates seven scheduled flights a day: four to London - Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted - and one each to Dublin, Birmingham and Manchester. It also regularly operates charters for ski and sun holidays. Destinations include Salzburg, Prague, Faro and Jerez, with Malaga and Lanzarote being the most popular. The airport's Vision 2020 development plan, which was launched last year, aims at having two million passengers by 2020, with 55 destinations, among them connections to all the main cities in Britain and Europe, weekly flights to North America, and some long-haul destinations.

It's a Monday morning at Knock, and the first flight of the day, the 7.30am Loganair to Dublin, has already left. Both arrivals and departures are busy, with the arrival of the 10.55am Ryanair flight from Luton. There is a bust of Mgr Horan in the airport lounge. There's also a Knock Shrine kiosk, painted in the strong blue colours traditionally associated with the robes on statues of Mary seen in grotto shrines.

Miriam Bones, who operates the kiosk, has been working at the airport since the day it opened. She sells Mass cards, rosary beads, certificates which entitle you to a mention at the Masses in the Basilica at Knock, books and holy water fonts. Today, business has been slow, but she has sold some Mass enrolment certificates.

"It's mostly the 40-plus age group I sell to," she says.

Martin Rosewell and his mother, Patricia, are sitting in the restaurant, waiting for Martin's 11.20am flight to Luton. From here, on a clear day like today, you can see Croagh Patrick through one set of windows, and a statue of Christ on the airport's apron from the other. Martin lives in London and has been visiting his mother, who lives in Tuam, Co Galway.

"The flights are cheap, but the airport is very bland. You don't know you've arrived in Ireland. It's like you've landed in a shed somewhere," Martin says.

John Glavey is the bartender at the Runway bar and has worked here since the airport opened.

"In the 1980s, with the emigration, I'd look out from the bar and see lovely happy faces coming through arrivals and then tears going through departures," he says.

"Nowadays, it's smiles in both areas."

Matt Macken is security duty officer who, like Glavey, has been working at the airport since it opened.

"Without this airport, the west wouldn't have been able to advance," he says. He remembers Christmas being the busiest and most bittersweet time of the year, when emigrants came home. Now it's the summer months from May to September, with the sun holiday charters, that are by far the busiest.

The McSweeney family; father Mark, mother Lisa and their children Ryan and Charlotte, have just got off the Luton flight. They're being met by Tim, Mark's father, who lives in Co Leitrim. It's their first time using the airport. They paid £120 (€176) for the four seats, but Tim is annoyed that when his son and family leave, they will have to pay the airport's mandatory "development fee" of €10 for all passengers over the age of 12.

"It's about supporting the area, isn't it?" Mark asks.

"It's not fair on the tourists," Tim says.

It becomes clear during the day that the development fee is highly unpopular with passengers.

"Nobody is happy with it," says Martin McFadden from Achill, who is seeing off two passengers on their way to a funeral in London. The passengers' chief complaint is that there is no notice at the airport satisfactorily explaining what the money is used for.

However, the airport's website, www.knockairport.com, clearly states the reasons why the fee is charged, and lists the ongoing developments which it is funding, such as upgrading the landing system, extending the car park and improving the catering facilities.

The airport, which had a turnover last year of €11 million, is managed by Connaught Airport Development Company, which is owned by the Horan International Airport Trust. The non-profit trust is administered by eight trustees, three of whom are ex-officio; the Archbishop of Tuam, the parish priest of Knock Shrine and the Mayo County Manager. The others are travel agent John Dillon, Brian McEniff of the McEniff Hotel Group, businessman Joseph Kennedy, company executive Martin Gillen, and businessman Sean Noone. Since its inception, the airport has had several name changes. It started out as Connacht Regional Airport and was renamed Horan International Airport after Mgr Horan's death. Later, it became known as Knock Airport and then Knock International Airport. On its 20th anniversary last year, it was renamed yet again, and is now known as Ireland West Airport Knock.

"The name change was very important to market the airport abroad," says Liam Scollan, the airport's managing director. "The name signifies where we are in Ireland - Ireland west. To build our business as we want to, our big challenge is to attract tourists and first-time visitors, not just people who have family connections with the area."

Although nobody could have predicted it in 1985, Knock airport was then a perfect example of a Ryanair airport before the travelling public became acquainted with what a Ryanair airport was - a non-urban location served by cheap flights. Ryanair went into business only a few months after Knock airport opened, and undoubtedly contributed to its survival and growth. What Knock airport lacks now, however - greatly to its detriment if it wants to grow its first-time visitor business - is an ancillary transport system.

Unless you have friends or family meeting you, you either have to rent a car or take the hourly shuttle bus to Charlestown, six miles away, from where you make your own arrangements. Scollan points out that providing public transport links to the airport is not part of their remit, but acknowledges it is unhelpful for the airport's development.

In the departures lounge, Yvonne Hopkins is waiting for the 2.25pm Easyjet flight to Gatwick.

She is from Castlerea in Co Roscommon and has been living in Surrey for the past eight years. She has come home for the weekend, something that would have been "impossible" without the airport.

In the years she has been using the service, she's noticed two instantly distinguishable kinds of passengers. "People in dark suits coming back for funerals. And stag parties. Someone must be looking on the web for cheap flights, and saying 'That'll do'. I always wonder what the stag parties make of the place once they arrive - I see them looking out the window when we come in to land and realising it's all fields. I have no idea what they do once they get here, or where they go, but I guess there are plenty of pubs around anyway."

In August 1986, special flights were put on between Dublin and Knock to facilitate those who wanted to attend Mgr Horan's funeral. The day return cost £54 (€68). Today, 20 years later, the same flight costs €80, which says a lot about how cheap fares have become.

After 20 years of inflation, you wouldn't find a house in 2006 at close to 1986 prices.

It might well have been a foggy, boggy site, with what seemed like unrealistic ambitions for its future, but 20 years on, the "airport up in Knock" of Christy Moore's famous ballad, is still there, and carrying more people to more destinations every year.

Chronicle of a birth foretold

1980 Proposed Connacht Airport at Knock as envisaged by Mgr James Horan gets government backing

1981 First sod cut on site. Fundraising nationally and internationally to raise the airport's cost of £13 million

1985 First three aircraft take off for pilgrimage to Rome on October 25th

1986 Airport officially opened by Charles Haughey on May 30th; Mgr James Horan dies in August

1987 Ryanair begins a Knock-Luton route

1988 Passenger throughput at airport is 100,000

1999 Some 200,000 passengers pass through airport

2003 Big increase in sun holiday charters

2004 First snow and ski charters

2005 Passenger throughput at airport is 500,000

2020 Two million passengers predicted for airport