Pat Coleman recalls a memorable moment from his childhood, when an exotic airplane crash-landed in Galway... For Sunday Miscellany on RTÉ Radio 1, listen to One Enchanted Evening by Pat Coleman above.
It was Thursday, August 24th, 1962. There was still a week of the long glorious school holidays left to enjoy. My seven year old self and my friends were playing football at the local football field when around 5p.m. we noticed a bit of commotion. An aeroplane was circling the town flying at a low altitude. The plane was a twin engine Canberra jet bomber of the Ecuadorian Air Force. We children, who had never been remotely close to an aircraft of any kind were suddenly intoxicated with excitement. That excitement continued as the plane now headed east over what we called the Dublin Road. A large cohort of young and old instinctively began to run up that Dublin Road, with the plane getting lower and lower...
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