{"id":631447,"date":"2026-09-21T13:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631447\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:52:16","slug":"hot-air-balloons-take-to-roscommon-skies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/631447\/","title":{"rendered":"Hot air balloons take to Roscommon skies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 54th Irish Hot Air Ballooning Championships are taking place in Boyle, Co Roscommon, this week and hundreds of spectators have gathered to catch a glimpse.<\/p>\n

One ambitious ballooning pilot, Doug Hoddinott, spoke to RT\u00c9 News about his attempt to break the Guinness World Record with his giant suitcase-shaped hot air balloon, which took to the skies yesterday evening.<\/p>\n

His target is to surpass the record of a balloon flying in 20 different countries over the span of 365 days.<\/p>\n

The internal volume of his balloon is the equivalent of 25 double-decker buses.<\/p>\n

\"Suitcase-shaped
\nDoug Hoddinott’s suitcase-shaped hot air balloon<\/p>\n

Mr Hoddinott is currently at his fifth location in Ireland, and will be leaving for France following this leg of his tour to keep going with his attempt – as he plans to break the record by November. The Bristol native began his excursion in August.<\/p>\n

“I’m flying basically every day. It\u2019s quite special to be here in Ireland with the record because of the championships too,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Hot
\nThe championships are being held in Lough Key Forest park until 25 September<\/p>\n

Community is at the centre of these championships, as many pilots and balloonists have been meeting at the annual event for a long time and have grown up with the sport.<\/p>\n

Cavan woman Carol Davis has been ballooning since she was seven years old, and has passed the hobby down to her children, with her son Mark now a commercial ballooning pilot in Canada.<\/p>\n

He has come home for the ballooning championships in Boyle.<\/p>\n

This is also a special place for Ms Davis, as she got her ballooning licence in Lough Key back in 1990, as the championship was held in the Roscommon park until 1994.<\/p>\n

She said: There’s a real sense of freedom about it because you\u2019re just floating on the breeze – wherever the wind takes you. It\u2019s as close to flying as a bird that you can get!”<\/p>\n

The sport covers all ages, as even 11-year-old Evie Rose O’Rourke is already setting her sights on her pilot licence.<\/p>\n

She is currently logging hours with her father Brendan O’Rourke who is from Meath and is a ballooning pilot, but she will not be able to attain her licence until she is 17 years of age.<\/p>\n

\"Evie
\n11-year-old Evie Rose O’Rourke in her hot air balloon<\/p>\n

Evie said: “With ballooning, you never have the same story. It\u2019s always something different with every flight. It\u2019s wonderful each time”.<\/p>\n

The Irish Hot Air Ballooning Championships are being held in Lough Key Forest park until Friday, 25 September with both morning and evening flights scheduled each day, weather dependent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 54th Irish Hot Air Ballooning Championships are taking place in Boyle, Co Roscommon, this week and hundreds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-631447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631447","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=631447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}