Clifden Alcock & Brown Airport

Economic non-viability and disuse. The airstrip was a small, private facility that saw very little traffic. Like many small, privately-owned airfields, it likely closed due to a combination of high maintenance costs, low demand, and lack of funding, eventually falling into a state of disrepair and being officially delisted as an active airfield.

The airstrip itself is closed, unmaintained, and has largely returned to nature. The runway is overgrown and unusable for aviation.

The surrounding area, however, is a significant historical and tourist site. The exact landing spot of Alcock and Brown in the Derrygimlagh Bog is marked by a white tail-fin sculpture. On a nearby hill overlooking the landing site, there is a large memorial cairn shaped like an aircraft wing. The entire area is part of the 'Derrygimlagh Bog Discovery Point' on Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way tourist trail, which includes walking paths and interpretive displays about both the Alcock and Brown landing and the historic Marconi Wireless Station.

The site's primary historical significance predates the formal airstrip. It is world-famous as the landing location for the first non-stop transatlantic flight. On June 15, 1919, British aviators Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown crash-landed their Vickers Vimy biplane in the Derrygimlagh Bog, very close to this location, after a 16-hour flight from Newfoundland, Canada. They had mistaken the bog for a suitable green field. The nearby Marconi Wireless Station, which they were using as a landmark, was the first point-to-point transatlantic wireless service in the world.

The later airstrip, designated IE-0006, was a simple, unpaved runway established in the late 20th century to honor this event and to serve the local general aviation community. It was never a commercial airport with scheduled services. Its operations were limited to light private aircraft, catering to flying enthusiasts and potentially some tourist flights over the Connemara landscape.

There are no known official plans or active prospects for reopening the airstrip. The focus of local and national development is on heritage tourism, centered on the historic 1919 landing and the Marconi station. Given the site's environmental sensitivity (bogland) and the significant investment required to restore and maintain an airfield for minimal traffic, a reopening is considered highly unlikely.