No Blarney: Priest’s Flight of Fancy Really Took Off

--Critics labeled it a white elephant and said it would never fly, but 10,000 flag-waving people lined the field as an airport built through the determination of a village priest opened near a remote shrine in western Ireland. Three jetliners with 400 faithful aboard lifted off for Rome from Knock, County Mayo, the first flights from the facility that Msgr. James Horan, the village’s 72-year-old priest, fought for over a five-year period. The airport, abandoned by the Irish government, was completed after Horan raised $2.16 million in the United States and Britain to have it built. Horan hopes that the airport will attract legions of pilgrims to Ireland’s most celebrated religious site, the Marian shrine to the Virgin Mary, visited by Pope John Paul II in 1979.

--They have an unpredictable personality and a reputation for stubbornness, but for two days the spotlight was on mules as Lynchburg, Tenn., marked National Mule Appreciation Day with contests and ceremonies. “One minute he’ll behave hisself, and the next minute he just does as he pleases,” Bill Wallace of Franklin, Tenn., said in tribute to the long-eared critters. “Mules are smarter than most of the folks that handle them,” said Dick Reese, a third-generation mule trader from Gallatin, Tenn. Saturday marked the 200th anniversary of the arrival in the United States of the first jackasses--the sires of mules--a gift from King Charles II of Spain to President George Washington, who bred them to horses, creating the first American mule. Highlight of the Tennessee ceremonies was the presentation of a 7-year-old mule, Black Jack, to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Black Jack will serve as mascot for the Army football team, succeeding 29-year-old Buckshot, who is being retired.

--When Amy Nessler’s teacher started collecting pennies last year for the renovation for the Statue of Liberty, the New Jersey first-grader had 365 special coppers to contribute. The pennies were collected, one per day, in 1968 while Amy’s mother, Joan, waited for her fiance to finish his tour of duty in Vietnam. Sixteen years later, Joan and Charlie Nessler, of West Deptford Township, still had the penny jar, and Amy wanted to make a special contribution to a symbol of liberty. “The whole family agreed this was a good idea,” Mrs. Nessler said. Amy’s father “fought for freedom in Vietnam, and the Statue of Liberty stands for freedom.” The Nessler family and five others who made special donations to the Statue of Liberty fund will be greeted Monday in the White House Rose Garden by President and Mrs. Reagan.