From Mick Jagger to Fidel Castro: Shannon Airport’s star arrivals in the frame at photographic exhibit

Shannon Airport’s celebration of 70 years since the first commercial transatlantic flight into an Irish airport has been marked with a photographic exhibition featuring the many famous people who passed through — and the one who didn’t.

The permanent exhibition, located in the airport transit lounge, includes images of more than 60 world famous faces and events that happened at the airport from the early years of operations right up to the modern day.

Former airport director Michael Guerin said the most important of all was the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979, while the most controversial was Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who remained on board and left the then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds — who had flown in from Australia for the occasion — on the tarmac with the rest of the welcoming party.