Micheál Martin’s government has failed to disclose 248 flights by US military warplanes over Irish airspace since August 2025. There is a strong chance that many of these aircraft are involved in war crimes committed by the Washington terror regime. The Irish Times says they used “open source software” to track the flights, after official figures showed a major drop-off in the number of passing warplanes to just a couple each month. Previous government figures showed 30 to 50 aircraft per month. The government blamed the discrepancy on “administrative error”.

After the Times notified the government, the latter published corrected figures on Thursday 16 April, which were in line with those provided for earlier periods. However, the revised figures show some revealing trends. There was a large drop-off in military traffic around October 2025, when so-called ‘Israel’ agreed to its fraudulent ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza.

While the illegitimate settler-colony has maintained its genocide, killing over 750 Palestinians since the agreement to stop hostilities was reached, the intensity of bombardment has dropped off. This decrease in mass murder is paralleled by a decline in US military flights over Ireland, suggesting Irish airspace is indeed being used to ferry weapons of genocide to the Zionist land theft project.

US military flights over Ireland likely involved in war crimes against Iran

Similarly, another change in flight numbers matches the launching of the illegal US-‘Israeli’ attack on Iran. The Irish Times says:

The figures show a 56 per cent surge in US military overflights of Ireland last month as the US launched hundreds of strikes on Iran.

The overflight of US warplanes is governed by the Air Navigation (Foreign Military Aircraft) Order 1952. This mandates that all foreign military aircraft must obtain diplomatic clearance to enter Irish airspace. Exemptions can be granted on this basis, provided the plane is unarmed, not carrying weapons, not involved in intelligence gathering and not part of a military operation.

The Irish government takes this on trust from the US government. That is, they trust a government led by a war criminal and pathological liar. However, Micheál Martin’s band of sycophants have found it impossible to conceal the appalling truth. They admitted in October 2025 that they:

…allowed munitions of war – onboard a US military plane authorised by Simon Harris to touch down at Shannon Airport – to travel through Irish territory on their way to Israel.

The Irish Times point out the government breached the no surveillance aircraft rule when it allowed:

…multiple overflights of Poseidon P-8 surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft in early January.

These too were engaged in illegal activity by aiding:

…in the pursuit by the US military of a ship in the North Atlantic which had earlier attempted to collect sanctioned oil from Venezuela.

This was part of Trump’s illegal sanctions against the Central American nation, culminating in the murderous abduction of the country’s president Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

The Air Navigation (Carriage of Munitions of War, Weapons and Dangerous Goods) Orders 1973 and 1989 permit exemptions to allow civil aircraft to carry weapons through Irish airspace, if granted an exemption by the minister for transport. According to Al Jazeera:

In 2024, the Department of Transport approved 1,354 applications for civil aircraft or Irish-registered aircraft to carry military weapons or ammunition through Ireland…

Government maintains absurd pretence that Ireland isn’t aiding US atrocities

Despite the fact that weapons transfer through Ireland has literally been confirmed by the Irish government itself, ministers and the Taoiseach himself are still happy to shamelessly lie about the matter. In the face of the damning new overflights figures, and evidence Shannon is a stop-off point for US warplanes on their way to the main German staging post for the assault on Iran, Martin said:

First of all, Shannon [Airport] is not being used for those purposes and there have been repeated attempts to conflate Shannon with both the war in Gaza – which was absolutely false, and there were false claims – and this is a continuing narrative from certain quarters politically within Ireland, which I think will damage Shannon.

Minister for foreign affairs Helen McEntee similarly insulted the public’s intelligence when she said there is “no reason to believe” weapons of mass murder are being moved through Ireland. She said of the rules prohibiting weapons transfer:

…we have no reason to suggest that they’re not [being adhered to].

Oh yes no reason at all, until you recall that the US, even pre-Trump, were serial liars when it came to their illegal killing sprees abroad. These kind of comments from the government are only likely to further enrage anti-war activists, and prompt more direct action against the criminal use of Shannon airport. Until Martin and co. stop participating in atrocities, long may these acts of resistance continue.

Featured image via the Canary