Flying boat
During the Ethiopian famine, GPA sponsored two airlifts of emergency supplies in October and November 1984. A number of other, mainly artistic endeavours benefited from sponsorship by GPA that included the following: In 1988 the first GPA Dublin International Piano Competition took place and was won by French pianist Philippe Cassard. In 1984 Robert Armstrong won the Guinness Peat Aviation Awards for Emerging Artists and in 1986 Eithne Jordan won during the show held in Dublin. One of the exhibitors was Vincent Killowry and in 1987 GPA bought most of the works at his first one-man show in Limerick. In 1989 John Banville received the Guinness Peat Aviation Book Award for his novel "The Book of Evidence", also shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Also in 1989 the Foynes Flying boat Museum , at its inception, was sponsored as the "GPA Foynes Flying Boat Museum".