123:. She became the secretary of the DBC in 1987, helping in the production of a short history for its ten-year anniversary. In her capacity as a DBC official she attended Irish Aero Club board meetings. She volunteered to be the organising secretary of a fundraising air show which had been proposed. O'Rourke and a team of volunteers staged the Air Spectacular, in
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in 1997. For the 2000 Air
Spectacular she compiled a souvenir programme. She produced a number of videos on the history of flight, with one such video from 1990 being widely shown in schools. Another such production was to mark the 50th anniversary of an RAF crash in Wicklow in 1941. She worked with
146:, which had better facilities, but still required logistics of parking, ticketing, catering, and toilets for over 100,000 visitors. They were complex events, for which O'Rourke acknowledged that the organisers needed "the patience of a saint, the arms of an octopus, and nerves of steel."
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in 1971, one of only 6 women in the membership of 200. She was appointed social secretary, and when finances allowed she took flying lessons. She took her first solo flight in July 1972. She joined the Dublin
Ballooning Club (DBC) with her husband in 1975, and later joined the
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to
Baldonnel the first time since 1922 that the RAF officially visited the Irish state. Having achieved this, O'Rourke stepped back from airshow organising. She continued her involvement in aviation, and was the first woman to fly a
94:. The family home was on Lansdowne Road, Dublin. She had one older brother. During the 1930s, her mother had been an amateur tennis champion at junior and senior level. She married Colm O'Rourke on 17 November 1972 in
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in 1980, for her contributions to Irish sport aviation. The World
Aerospace Education Organization gave her their award in 1992 for leadership in aerospace education. In 1994, she was elected a member of the
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regarding "air education". She was a researcher and assistant for a wide range of RTÉ radio programmes, with particular interest in aviation history, the most notable of which was the four-part
222:. She died on 2 June 2006 in St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. Her husband donated her library to the Air Corps Flying Training School, which is now displayed at the Air Corps College.
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O'Rourke and her team would organise increasingly complex and popular shows over the next 9 years. At first with small budgets, and later with sponsorship from
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138:. The early shows took place on racecourses and small airfields with poor infrastructure. These shows entailed partnering with air traffic control in
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142:. During the first event, this was done from a payphone by a volunteer with a pocketful of 10p coins. Later events took place on
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in
Ireland on Sandymount Strand in June 1980. In the same year, she became the first secretary of the
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90:. Her parents were Olive (née Poole) and Peter J. Byrne, who was an electrical engineer with the
198:(1998), focused on the Society of Amateur Aircraft Constructors. She wrote a Masters thesis
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78:(1951 – 2 June 2006) was an Irish aviator, aviation events organiser, and sound engineer.
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Lunney, Linde (2013). "O'Rourke, Madeleine C.". In McGuire, James; Quinn, James (eds.).
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radio, and wrote many letters to newspapers on the topic of aviation. Another series,
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for an MA in Film
Studies. She had a particular interest in the early Irish aviator,
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Madeleine O'Rourke was born
Madeleine Byrne in 1951 in south
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schools on educational events as part of her role in the
173:(1989), and produced a 75th-anniversary history of the
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200:Flying for the Silver Screen and the Irish Story
149:During the 1987 event, O'Rourke worked with the
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110:O'Rourke attended an air show in Ballyfree,
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171:Air Spectaculars: air displays in Ireland
96:St Mary's church, Haddington Road, Dublin
258:. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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299:"Magnificent men and flying machines"
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164:Irish Microlight Aircraft Association
102:. They had one daughter, Marguerite.
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98:. They were both sound engineers in
297:Browne, Harry (15 December 1998).
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255:Dictionary of Irish Biography
60:St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin
121:Irish Ballooning Association
365:Aviators from Dublin (city)
278:Fry, Paul (November 2013).
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220:Royal Aeronautical Society
153:, making the visit of the
280:"In Memory of an Aviator"
209:O'Rourke was awarded the
211:Paul Tissandier Diploma
180:Irish Aviation Council
82:Early life and family
370:Irish women aviators
184:Spreading our wings
144:Baldonnel airfield
76:Madeleine O'Rourke
25:Madeleine O'Rourke
192:Sunday miscellany
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55:(2006-06-02)
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53:2 June 2006
349:Categories
333:28 October
308:28 October
226:References
169:She wrote
160:microlight
155:Red Arrows
132:Aer Rianta
125:Fairyhouse
188:Gay Byrne
44:, Ireland
213:by the
324:"Home"
88:Dublin
42:Dublin
69:Irish
335:2020
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50:Died
38:1951
31:Born
151:RAF
100:RTÉ
92:ESB
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