Royal Air Force Bishops Court or more simply RAF Bishops Court is a former

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

airfield, radar control and reporting station located on the south east coast of

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, approximately from

Downpatrick Downpatrick () is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is on the Lecale peninsula, about south of Belfast. In the Middle Ages, it was the capital of the Dál Fiatach, the main ruling dynasty of Ulaid. Down Cathedral, Its cathedral is sai ...

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

and from

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, Northern Ireland. A

Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquess of Marconi ( ; ; 25 April 1874 – 20 July 1937) was an Italian electrical engineer, inventor, and politician known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based wireless telegraph system. This ...

AMES Type 84 The Air Ministry Experimental Station, AMES Type 84, also known as the Microwave Early Warning or MEW, was a 23 cm wavelength early warning radar used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) as part of the Linesman/Mediator radar network. Operating in ...

radar was located on the airfield and an

AMES Type 80 The Air Ministry Experimental Station, AMES Type 80, sometimes known by its development rainbow code Green Garlic, was a powerful early-warning radar, early warning (EW) and ground-controlled interception (GCI) radar developed by the Telecommuni ...

radar was located at Killard Point,

Ballyhornan Ballyhornan (from Irish ''Baile an Eoirna'' meaning ‘the town land of the barley’) is a village and townland in eastern County Down, Northern Ireland, located along the coast of the Irish Sea. It has about 1,000 residents and located less t ...

(remote from the station itself). An AMES Type 93 mobile radar was also located on the airfield from 1989 until the station closed.

History

Airfield

The Class A bomber airfield opened in April 1943 with a main runway of and two subsidiaries of .

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

landed at Bishops Court in May 1944 while inspecting airfields. The airfield reopened in March 1953 for training for the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

but closed again in April 1954. A number of different units were based at the airfield: *

819 Naval Air Squadron 819 Naval Air Squadron (819 NAS), also known as 819 Squadron, was a Fleet Air Arm (FAA) naval air squadron of the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy (RN). It most recently operated Westland Sea King between February 1971 and November 2001. Establish ...

* No. 7 Air Observers School RAF between (17 May 1943 and 15 February 1944 * No. 12 Air Gunners School RAF between 1 August 1943 and 31 May 1945 * No. 7 (Observers) Advanced Flying Unit RAF between 15 February 1944 and 31 May 1945 * No. 7 Air Navigation School RAF between 31 May 1945 and 4 June 1947 *

No. 2 Air Navigation School RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, (also represented as Nº, No̱, No., or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, the ...

between 4 June and 1 October 1947 * No. 3 Air Navigation School RAF between 3 March 1952 and 14 April 1954 *

No. 671 Gliding School RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, (also represented as Nº, No̱, No., or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, the ...

between 22 January 1959 and September 1962 * No. 664 Volunteer Gliding School RAF between February 1987 and 31 October 1990

Radar station

RAF Bishops Court formed part of the UK Military Air Traffic Service, as one of four reporting stations it was to control its sector (North Atlantic) and was commanded by HQ Military Air Traffic Operations (MATO) at

RAF Uxbridge RAF Uxbridge was a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Uxbridge, within the London Borough of Hillingdon, occupying a site that originally belonged to the Hillingdon House estate. The British Government purchased the estate in 1915, three years b ...

and

RAF Strike Command The Royal Air Force's Strike Command was the military formation which controlled the majority of the United Kingdom's bomber and fighter aircraft from 1968 until 2007 when it merged with Personnel and Training Command to form the single Air ...

High Wycombe High Wycombe, often referred to as Wycombe ( ), is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England. Lying in the valley of the River Wye, Buckinghamshire, River Wye surrounded by the Chiltern Hills, it is west-northwest of Charing Cross in London, ...

. The site was known as Ulster Radar and had both a military and civil role. In its civil role, the civilian personnel (using the military radar) controlled air traffic, primarily over the Atlantic to ensure correct height and separation. The

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

fired five mortar bombs at the radar site on 11 September 1989. The responsibilities of the site were assumed by the air traffic control centre at

Prestwick Prestwick () is a town in South Ayrshire on the west coast of Ayrshire in Scotland about southwest of Glasgow. It adjoins the larger town of Ayr to the south on the Firth of Clyde coast, the centre of which is about south, and the small vi ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

, in October 1978. The radar equipment was soon removed from the site, however the RAF remained. In the early 1980s new bunkers were constructed and a mobile radar was installed. The decision to close the 577 acre (2.3 km²) site was taken in the late 1980s and it was put up for sale in the period 1991–1995. Alexander Galt, the famous Scottish artist, was stationed here during the war. While there, he painted murals on the wall of the Officers' mess. The paintings are still visible.

Current use

Since the sale, the land surrounding the runway has been used for agriculture, while the land at one end of the site (including some of the airfield runways) has been used for motor sport being called Bishopscourt Racing Circuit. Today at least one runway remains intact and is used by gliders, the married quarters are now civilian housing. In 2003, it was reported that Bishopscourt was a contender for a

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish Low-cost carrier#Ultra low-cost carrier, ultra low-cost airline group headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. The parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, includes subsidiaries Ryanair , Malta Air, Buzz (Ryanair), Buzz ...

airfield in the south of Northern Ireland. While the site would require significant infrastructure improvement if this were to happen, the former RAF station would fit into the Ryanair business model (selecting airports some distance from a capital/major city with low landing fees and providing transport to that city.)

References

External links