The Industrialization of Shannon

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o'regan's in a free zone in which any company from any country could come and make anything to be sent anywhere. By the middle of the 19 sixties, something like 25 % of irish industrial exports were coming out of the shannon industrial zone. In a very few years, over two thousand jobs have been created,. producing a wide ge of products for firms whose headquarters are in countries as far apart as holland and japan.

On the west coast of Ireland, on the banks of an estuary dividing county Limerick from county Clare, lies a small town called Shannon. But Shannon is not a quaint fishing village or farming community. Its industry is its airport. And Shannon Airport is big. It handles up to 1.7 million passengers and 20,000 flights a year, most of them from other countries. It looks like a cosmopolitan international airport, but it has a unique claim to fame: the world's first airport duty-free store.

Today, the store has what you would expect -- designer perfumes, jewelry and various fine foods, with a lot of local (in this case Irish) products in particular. But like the area around the airport, the shop started out small, with a local boy from the area who would go on to change the world of tax-free commerce in and beyond Shannon.

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