Airplane flyover of Portlaoise and free talk on local hero, Bremen pilot Col James Fitzmaurice

An exciting flyover will take place over Laois this April, to celebrate the 98th anniversary of the first flight from Europe to the USA, co-piloted by a local man, Col. James Fitzmaurice.

A commemoration event will be held in Fitzmaurice Place, Portlaoise named after the pilot, at 12 noon on Sunday, April 12 in memory of the first East-West Transatlantic Flight.

It will include speeches by members of the Irish Air Corps, the Col. Fitzmaurice Commemorative Society and a student from St Mary’s CBS Portlaoise, the Laois school that the pilot had attended. Then the thrilling flyover will be done by pilots from the local Limetree Airfield.

The famous Bremen airplane.

While a ceremony is held yearly, but this year the public can find out all about the exciting first flight, as it will be followed by a discussion and question and answers session. 

That talk will be held in Kavanagh’s Bar on Main Street, starting at 1pm.

Laois Heritage Officer Thomas Carolan will be chatting about the famous flight and the life of Col. James Fitzmaurice, to Brigadier General Rory O'Connor and Retired General Ralph James of the Irish Air Corps.

Also speaking will be Portlaoise historian Teddy Fennelly, of the Colonel Fitzmaurice Commemorative Society.

Laois Heritage Officer Thomas Carolan is hoping for a big turnout.

“Every year after the commemoration event, we have great conversations about the flight and Col. Fitzmaurice’s life, and we thought this is something the public would be interested to hear more about.

"Teddy Fennelly has written the book on Col. James Fitzmaurice’s life and the Air Corps representatives have a great understanding and appreciation of the technical skill required to complete the flight in 1928, so it will be very interesting and informative” he said.

The Bremen Crew - Crew of first East-West Transatlantic Flight: including Laois man Col.  James Fitzmaurice of the Irish Air Corps along with German pilot Hermann Kohl and owner Baron Ehrenfried Günther von Hünefeld.

The first ever East-West transatlantic flight in history was completed on the 12th April 1928.

The crew included Laois man Col. James Fitzmaurice of the Irish Air Corps along with two German aviators (Hermann Kohl and Baron Ehrenfried Günther von Hünefeld).

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The flight took off from Baldonnel airport at 06.36 on 12th April and headed west towards New York. The aircraft successfully crossed the Atlantic and landed on Greenly Island, Canada 36.5 hours after take-off.

After their successful landing, the crew appeared on newspapers worldwide and were received with a huge ticker tape parade in New York while Fitzmaurice handed a letter from the Irish President to the US President.