The first flight from Clifden, Co Galway, since Alcock and Brown landed there in 1929, should take off next summer following An Bord Pleanala's decision to approve a controversial airstrip near the town.
It is intended to provide an air service between the mainland and the north Connemara islands of Inishbofin, Inishturk and Clare Island, which have a permanent population of 468. The islanders see this as essential to their future.
In a rare split decision, the appeals board granted permission for the proposed airstrip in line with Government policy to promote new links with the offshore islands, but rejected plans for a terminal building and associated car parking.
Clifden and Connemara Airport plc, headed by local hotelier Mr Paul Hughes, had its plans approved by Galway County Council in August 1999. The decision was appealed by conservationists, including British author and broadcaster Mike Harding.
At an oral hearing on the appeal last October, Mr Harding, who has a home in Connemara, said it would be "an act of vandalism" to develop an airstrip on the chosen site - an unspoiled blanket bog in Cloon and Laghtanabba towlands, six miles north of Clifden.
An Bord Pleanala noted that the site lay outside the boundaries of a candidate Special Area of Conservation and said the airstrip "would not cause undue damage to the ecology or visual amenities of the area or diminish its heritage value".
Mr Hughes, who abandoned earlier attempts to build an airport near Clifden in the face of national and international opposition, said yesterday he was "over the moon". "It's been a long haul," he added. "This is a community enterprise and we've offered it to the State if they want to take it over." Asked when air services were likely to start, he said he was hopeful that the first aircraft would take off for Inishbofin "this time next year".
Though the board's rejection of the terminal building would cause some problems, Mr Hughes said Aer Arann was quite happy to operate without one. In the longer term, however, "we will have to get something up there, even if it's just a Portakabin".
He was also satisfied with one of the conditions laid down by An Bord Pleanala which specifies that no development should be undertaken on the site until work has started on an airstrip at Middlequarter, Inishbofin, for which permission was granted in 1999.
The board said this was intended to ensure the airstrip served its primary purpose of providing air access to Inishbofin. Earlier plans for a more ambitious airport to serve Clifden envisaged catering for tourists from Britain and the Continent.
The project, which involved a site on Roundstone Bog, had to be abandoned after it ran into intense opposition. Apart from Mr Harding, objectors to the latest scheme included An Taisce, Birdwatch Ireland and the Irish Peatland Conservation Council.