James Fitzmaurice

James Fitzmaurice launched the first successful east-west Atlantic flight from County Dublin in April 1928, conquering the headwinds and magnetic chaos that had defeated earlier pilots. He flew the Junkers W33 Bremen across the ocean, claiming the prestige and dignity for the infant Irish Free State that government caution had withheld. The man who dreamed the impossible at Baldonnel became the first to make it fact, forcing the world to acknowledge Irish ambition on the grandest stage.