Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to be here, very grateful for the invitation and pleased to have been given this opportunity to say a few words.

Just over a week ago, I was present at Hillsborough Forest where two sisters, Mrs Sally Fleming and Mrs Caroline Blest, unveiled a memorial commemorating the first successful flight in Ireland, on 31 December 1909, of a powered aircraft which had been designed, built and flown by its native-born pilot, their grandfather Harry Ferguson, who was destined to achieve world-wide recognition, fame and a fortune, not because of his flight but of his later invention of his three-point linkage and its application to the development of agricultural implements and tractors. In due course, farming throughout the world was utterly transformed, with the result that Harry's aviation achievement was eclipsed and largely taken for granted if not forgotten, which is unfortunate, because the fact is that Harry Ferguson had inaugurated a history of aviation in Ulster which bears very favourable comparison with other regions of the British Isles, whether because of relevant developments or particular personalities whose individual contributions were and are the life-blood of aviation history, in the local and/or wider context,

Whether or not he was inspired by Harry Ferguson, the fact is that John Joe Gilmore was one such person and I applaud Ulster History Circle, working in conjunction with Lecale and Downe Historical Society for what is being done here today, for it is only the second blue plaque of which I'm aware that has been commissioned to celebrate the life of an Ulster aviation personality. Much of Joe's contribution was made when he was living beyond the boundaries of Ulster but, even so, for much of that time local aviation history was being enhanced as a result. I think, for instance, of the mass movement of new aircraft across the North Atlantic during the Second World War to which Joe made a very important contribution through the work of what eventually became Royal Air Force Ferry Command Many hundreds of military aircraft were flown to the UK during this period, to destinations such as the transatlantic ferry terminal at Nutts Corner, indeed the mass delivery of aircraft under this scheme was in effect inaugurated on 11 November 1940 with the arrival, at RAF Aldergrove, of seven Lockheed Hudsons which had flown from Newfoundland.

This is just one aspect of the contribution of a man whose life, tragically, was cut short in a way not uncommon among pilots. Neverth-eless, he fully deserves to be honoured as we do today and I look forward, as time goes by, to his blue plaque being joined by others to mark the contribution of many other great figures of our aviation history such as Lord Londonderry, Sir James Martin, Terry Bulloch and Rex McCandless, just to name a few.

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