Fly Mayo festival celebrates Waitkus landing 80 years on

Ciara Galvin

THE Lithuanian and Ballinrobe communities came together at the weekend to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of pilot Felix Waitkus’ crash landing near the town.
The Fly Mayo festival, which marks the Lithuanian pilot’s emergency landing in a field in Cloongowla just outside Ballinrobe, in 1935 attracted close to 700 visitors to the town over the weekend.
One of the organisers of the festival, local man David Hall described the weekend’s events as ‘perfect from the word go’.
Award-winning Lithuanian choir Jauna Muzika, from Vilnius, kicked off the weekend of celebrations by performing in St Mary’s Church on Friday evening in what was described as ‘heavenly’ by parish priest Canon Conal Eustace.
On Saturday crowds gathered for the unveiling of a statue to mark the 1935 landing by Waitkus, who was attempting a solo flight over the Atlantic when weather conditions forced the crash landing eighty years ago.

Unveiling
A replica of the original plane was unveiled by Lithuanian Ambassador to Ireland, His Excellency Rasa Adomaitiene; Minister of National Defence in Lithuania, Juozas Olekas; and Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine with Special Responsibility for Food, Forestry, Horticulture and Food Safety, Tom Hayes.
Among those gathered for the unveiling included Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in Lithuania Mantvydas Bekešius, TDs Éamon Ó Cuív, John O’Mahony and local councillors Patsy O’Brien and Damien Ryan.
The statue is one third the size of the original plane and is mounted at the entrance to the Bowers Walk in the town. The Balla pipe band led a parade to the unveiling and a colour parade was executed by the defence forces. The Lithuanian government funded the entire cost of the statue, approximately €60,000.
An evening of entertainment followed, at Ballinrobe Racecourse while the Jauna Muzika choir surprised Canon Eustace the following day at 11.30am Mass to sing to the congregation.
“The Lithuanian visitors to the town stayed in Ballinrobe for the whole weekend and thought it was wonderful. It’s onwards and upwards from here and we’re already talking about bringing back another choir for next year,” said Mr Hall.