Fouga
We may be at risk of drifting off-topic here. I am well aware of the assets you mention and have the photos taken at their bases to prove it! However the overall picture in NI and Scotland has been one of contraction for decades. For a long time the RAF has confined itself to two permanent bases in Scotland (both on the east coast) and pulled out of Ballykelly (Co Derry) in about 1970 when the Nimrod began to take over from the Shackleton. RAF Aldergrove was maintained into modern times primarily in support of anti-terrorist activities (it too had had anti-submarine aircraft in the 1940s and 1950s). RNAY Sydenham (now Belfast City) closed for military use in the early 1970s as well. The USAF used Prestwick as a rescue base and fairly busy transit facility into the early 1970s but after that it did not use it heavily. The US Navy did not AFAIK base anti-submarine aircraft in the UK other than for exercises from time to time.
The remainder of the RAF Tornado F.3 fleet was consolidated at Leuchars only in the context of the type's retirement at other bases (Coningsby and Leeming). In fact there has been a wind-down of the numbers in service there for the last few years to fairly low double figures so I think your description of this as the "near entire Tornado ADV fleet", while accurate, risks painting a rosier picture than the situation merits.
I don't disagree that the US could have had some interest in Irish bases but I just don't think it was as "plum" a location as people may think, certainly not by the 1980s. I think Shannon would have been a useful patrol/rescue/transit base in the same way as Lajes, Keflavik and Prestwick were in their day (and still are to an extent). However by the 1980s I think it was unlikely that significant additional facilities would have been developed had Ireland opted to join NATO.
