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that the government called the shots. New routes had to be approved, and getting that approval required convincing the department of transport that Aer Lingus, the fount of all its knowledge, was wrong.
    A former Aer Lingus executive says that the airline was divided internally by the threat of competition, with conservatives arguing that it had to be killed at source and some liberal elements relishing the prospect of a livelier, expanding market. ‘But management was dominated by the conservatives,’ he says.
    Ryanair had yet to prove itself to a hostile government but it had made its mark on an equally important constituency. The travelling public and initially the Irish media embraced the new company with an enthusiasm that unnerved its detractors. Eugene O’Neill, young, handsome and dynamic, captured the imagination; he was a David taking on the Aer Lingus Goliath, offering cheap flights and friendly service. His image was burnished by the skills of Anne O’Callaghan, his public relations adviser, who charmed the media and made it possible for O’Neill to shine. Significantly, too, the public wanted Ryanair to succeed because they had tasted low fares, and seen the immediate impact that Ryanair had had on Aer Lingus’s fares, and they liked what they saw.
    â€˜Our customers were extremely forgiving because they genuinely wanted Ryanair to succeed,’ says Charlie Clifton, who worked his way through the ranks at Ryanair from 1986 to 2002.We had very very good public relations – Eugene was excellent at that – and the whole company really got a lot of public support. They could see that we were trying to break the monopoly. And they could also see that we were a bunch of kids as well, so it wasn’t like you had crusty old folk who’d been there for years doing the stuff. We were just out of school, with no experience, trying to be as nice as we could. So you rarely got your head taken off. And people were pretty forgiving.
    In just two years the company grew from being a one-plane operation out of Waterford into a serious player on the Dublin–London route. Its ability to survive, despite a deteriorating financial position, was a source of deep irritation to Aer Lingus. Hostilities were not restricted to the executive teams in both companies. Ryanair’s young workforce was committed and passionate, and had no time for the patronizing disdain of the state-owned airline and its comfortable, well-paid staff. On the ground the battles were just as intense as in the boardrooms and Ryanair’s people needled their Aer Lingus counterparts at every opportunity.
    Clifton recalls the skirmishes, and Ryanair’s minor victories still bring a smile to his face. When Ryanair moved into Cork airport in the spring of 1987, Clifton says, ‘Aer Lingus acted as if it had owned that airport forever and then along came bright-eyed Ryanair. There was all sorts of messing. We’d say, “Can we have those stands there?” and they’d say snootily, “No, those are the Aer Lingus stands.” We didn’t have chocks for putting under the aircraft’s wheels, so we merrily helped ourselves to the Aer Lingus chocks, then they’d come round and steal them back.’
    To settle their differences, Ryanair eventually challenged Aer Lingus to a soccer match. ‘We took them all out, eleven against eleven; we beat them 3–1 and we rang up the
Cork Examiner
and we got it put into the paper,’ Clifton says, still pleased by the victory almost twenty years later. ‘There were two brothers working for us, and there was something like eleven brothers in the family, and one of them played for Cork City and he came out for us. Of course the Aer Lingus guys didn’t know who was working for Ryanair and who wasn’t.’
    Aer Lingus’s naivety on the playing fields did not diminish its determination to put manners on Ryanair. It matched