Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise enjoy mystery trips to Ireland after private jets spotted

The two Hollywood heavyweights seem to have been spending time at locations in the west and south west of the country after their private jets were tracked landing here.

Spielberg’s Gulfstream jet flew a five-hour from a private airport in New York and landed at Ireland West Airport in Knock, Co. Mayo, on July 21. Later the same day it flew to Shannon.

The same jet took off from Shannon four days later on July 25 for Knock again, where it refuelled and departed for London, andlater for Rotterdam before returning to New York.

Tom Cruise’s Challenger jet touched down in Shannon from Maine on America’s east coast. He seems to have spent two days in that area before flying to Kerry Airport, near Killarney, before he left Ireland last Sunday and headed back to the States.

Cruise (60) is the highest-paid actor in Hollywood and his last public appearance in Ireland was at the premiere of his movie Oblivion in Dublin in 2013 – during his visit here he was given a Certificate of Irish Ancestry by the Government.

Spielberg (75) famously filmed Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks, in Co. Wexford in 1997.

Cruise and Spielberg have worked together before, in 2002’s Minority Report and 2005’s War of the Worlds.