{"id":348492,"date":"2026-03-16T04:22:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T04:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348492\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T04:22:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T04:22:15","slug":"shannon-airport-not-being-used-to-assist-us-war-in-iran-says-taoiseach-in-advance-of-trump-meeting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/348492\/","title":{"rendered":"Shannon Airport not being used to assist US war in Iran, says Taoiseach in advance of Trump meeting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said Shannon Airport is not being used to assist the US war in Iran <\/a>and the Government has no evidence that weapons and supplies for the US attacks <\/a>are being transported through Irish airspace.<\/p>\n

However, the Taoiseach admitted it was difficult to \u201cintervene\u201d or \u201cinvestigate\u201d if there were any \u201ctransgressions\u201d of rules prohibiting such activity by the US military<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach was speaking in Philadelphia on Sunday during the second day of his United States visit in advance of travelling to Washington DC where he will meet US president Donald Trump <\/a>at the White House on St Patrick\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Anticipation and trepidation in advance of Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s visit to the White HouseOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cShannon is not being used,\u201d said Martin. \u201cI just want to make that point. Shannon is not being used for those purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that there had been \u201crepeated attempts to conflate Shannon with both the war [in Iran] and Gaza<\/a>, which was absolutely false.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that \u201cfalse claims\u201d about weapons passing through Shannon were part of a \u201ccontinuing narrative from certain quarters, politically within Ireland, which I think will damage Shannon, if that kind of argument continues\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach said that there was a \u201cneed to be realistic in the modern era\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said there were \u201cestablished rules in terms of airspace and the utilisation of airspace. But again, we haven\u2019t any strong evidence that our airspace has been used for any attacks on Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Taoiseach awaits his next dentist\u2019s appointment at The White House<\/p>\n

He said there was \u201cinternational law governing airspace\u201d and that the State also had \u201carrangements made in terms of the rules and the framework by which you can fly through Irish airspace.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, he admitted, that \u201cthe capacity to investigate that or to intervene if there\u2019s transgression is challenging and problematic\u201d.<\/p>\n

The ongoing conflict in Iran <\/a>is the backdrop for the Taoiseach\u2019s St Patrick\u2019s Day visit to the US and his meeting with Trump.<\/p>\n

He has repeatedly said the Republic believes in international law and supports the principles of the UN charter, but has avoided being drawn on whether the US and Israeli attacks on Iran <\/a>are illegal under international law, as many critics have asserted.<\/p>\n

Asked if there was a difference between his statements and the messages from President Connolly on the issue, Martin replied: \u201cThe Government and successive governments have been committed to the international rules based order … And we have been very critical of the fact that we haven\u2019t been able to get reform of, particularly the security council of the United Nations and to get a broader membership of that security council … We\u2019re multilateralists at our core.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin also said that there remains a \u201cstanding invitation\u201d to Trump to visit the Republic. But the Taoiseach had no information on whether the president would visit next September, when his Doonbeg golf course hosts the Irish Open championship.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Message from the Editor: Miche\u00e1l Martin goes to WashingtonOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve no hard information in relation to that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After walking in the Philadelphia St Patrick\u2019s Day parade, Martin travelled to Washington for a reception hosted by Irish Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason.<\/p>\n

The Taoiseach is scheduled to attend several business events in Washington on Monday. And in the evening, he will attend the Ireland Funds dinner, one of the biggest events in the Irish-American calendar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said Shannon Airport is not being used to assist the US war in Iran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[969,61,11829,60,3410,1843,43,115],"class_list":["post-348492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-donald-trump","tag-ie","tag-iran","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}