Remeber my MIL saying “oh ye’ll have to get a scared heart now for the kitchen”.
Ehhhhhhhhhh, no.
Sacred heart pictures. An everyday fitting in houses that probably seem alien to so many younger folk today.
In my experience they either got stored away in the likes of attics or just got dumped. Especially the ones which would have questionable safety around the wiring by today’s standards. You don’t really see people in new houses buying them in the past 20 or more years.
My last house had one of these on the living room wall. Coming from a Presbyterian upbringing (I was adopted out of Catholicism!) it was spooky AF to me. I couldn’t figure it out and I’ve always wanted to know… are these things wired straight into the mains electrics or something? There was no plug or switch but that red light never went off. Was I, an ex-proddy atheist, actually paying for that bullshit?
There’s in my mams house
They were absolutely everywhere. Did the church organise an amnesty so you could safely decommission them without just throwing them in a skip?
I remember ours staying on when the fuse was tripped – maybe that was just our house, did our electrician like give it a circuit of its own or something??
Still in the kitchen.
A friend of mine is living in a cottage an old house and he cannot find the fuse to turn it off. Like the frame is actually embedded in the wall and the light forever on. Very old wiring in the house no neutral just old 2 lines in the cable.
It’s hung up in my kitchen at home
I can smell this picture. Like, instant childhood flashback.
I used to love mine. My grandmother was very holy/devout. I rewired her one one day. Put in an LED. And a battery. And a remote. The power used to go frequently back then. I’d wait for the right moments. Whenever she’d mention God with the power off I tapped the remote in my pocket. It was a miracle! God was watching over us!
Hehehehehehehehe
Jesus. Wistfully looking upwards. Towards himself.
I remember it like it was yesterday, it’s 50 years next year. We weren’t long moved in and a priest from the new church nearby called and wrote in our names at the bottom there.
He brought a bag of sweets for us to share, which was nice.
It’s still up in our kitchen, with eyes following you around the room.
The one in a house we stayed in last year appeared to have a veiny shaft. We referred to him as Horny Jesus: [https://imgur.com/a/JHCfEBM](https://imgur.com/a/JHCfEBM)
I work in the waste and recycling industry. I was at a big transfer station down in Brighton and they had a long concrete corridor down the back with hundreds of sacred heart of jesus’, Marys, virgin statues, you name it. The lads were picking them out of the loads coming in.
Middle easterners sure were white back then. He looks like the guy IT send up to fix the big printer that’s eating paper again.
Ah look at him there with the big Harry Kane head on him
I have a small family hardware shop. Cant get the sacred heart anymore. I’d be able to sell them no bother, get asked for 1 every week. I still regularly sell the small crucafix bulbs for them
So hot right now for cottage restorations, to fit with the authentic or recreated dresser, Belfast sink, and the range / cooking stove.
just had a flashback that if our parents thought we were lying about something we had to tell the truth to the sacred heart. Was that a thing in other people’s homes?
My father still has his up on the wall
In the sitting room. I’m moving in there in the next few months as he sadly passed and I *really* am not religious, but I’m also terrified of tempting fate my removing it!
My grandparents had one in their kitchen but hung slightly too low so every week Jesus would whack me in the back of the head with the corner of his little candle shelf.
My parents have a sacred heart in the kitchen and they had this hologram-type picture of Jesus on the cross (dunno what to call it) where he was all covered in blood and his eyes were closed, and when you waked passed the picture his eyes would suddenly open. That was gas. Scarier than any Halloween decoration I’ve ever seen.
Of course I was used to it but it terrified my friends. I remember one of the lads staying over one night running into my room in tears because they went down to the kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night and the Jesus picture opened his eyes to look at him.
Never mind where they went, where did they come from? Holy water fonts for inside the front door too. Nowhere sells them. They just appear.
You say this as if it isn’t still pride of place in my parent’s kitchen. I think they also have a carving of the last supper as you come in the front door.
There used to be one in my granny’s house and the light would never go off even when the power was out. An older cousin informed me it was a Jesus powered light bulb and that’s why it was never off.
I was probably 16 before I thought to question it.
I wouldn’t have one myself but the one in the family home now has a small shelf underneath acting as a bit of a shrine to people we’ve lost, it’s lovely in fairness
Just stayed in a house in West Cork, and they were everywhere.
That brings back memories. There was an empty house next door to my granny’s house and that red light was always on in the front room. As kids we found it scary.
I always remember if we weren’t sure if the power was gone out we’d take a quick look at the Sacred heart picture.
I came across about 6 various Jesus and Mary’s pictures and lights wrapped in newspaper in my ma’s shed. They were the ones from both sets of grandparents. She doesn’t have enough of a belief to hang them, but still has too much of the fear to throw them out.
In college, one of my friends moved into a house with one of these on the wall. She was telling us about the freaky picture with the exposed heart on the wall.
We were all expecting something very strange, so seeing a sacred heart there was very amusing.
Her family wasn’t religious at all, so she’d never seen one before. The rest of us had experience with our grannies or parents having one up.
They’re gone, they’re all gone, gone the way of the little statuettes and small holy water holders. Never to darken (or redden) a sitting room wall again, the only place left for them is in memory.
All the while those inoffensive yet uninspired landscape “paintings” your mam bought from the travelling “artist” still sit smugly on the wall, knowing they and they alone have achieved immortality.
You can have your opinions on the way people’s homes were decorated in the 80s and 90s but at least they had character, everybody’s homes are so fucking dull and cold now!
Builder in 2000 asked my Atheist wife where she would like the Sacred Heart.
Pretty sure he would have needed lots of lube.
37 comments
Remeber my MIL saying “oh ye’ll have to get a scared heart now for the kitchen”.
Ehhhhhhhhhh, no.
Sacred heart pictures. An everyday fitting in houses that probably seem alien to so many younger folk today.
In my experience they either got stored away in the likes of attics or just got dumped. Especially the ones which would have questionable safety around the wiring by today’s standards. You don’t really see people in new houses buying them in the past 20 or more years.
My last house had one of these on the living room wall. Coming from a Presbyterian upbringing (I was adopted out of Catholicism!) it was spooky AF to me. I couldn’t figure it out and I’ve always wanted to know… are these things wired straight into the mains electrics or something? There was no plug or switch but that red light never went off. Was I, an ex-proddy atheist, actually paying for that bullshit?
There’s in my mams house
They were absolutely everywhere. Did the church organise an amnesty so you could safely decommission them without just throwing them in a skip?
I remember ours staying on when the fuse was tripped – maybe that was just our house, did our electrician like give it a circuit of its own or something??
Still in the kitchen.
A friend of mine is living in a cottage an old house and he cannot find the fuse to turn it off. Like the frame is actually embedded in the wall and the light forever on. Very old wiring in the house no neutral just old 2 lines in the cable.
It’s hung up in my kitchen at home
I can smell this picture. Like, instant childhood flashback.
https://preview.redd.it/e75jbe4zujja1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=13578dcc0cb8ce485fe0a9ae9638b338da71e311
I repurposed one
I used to love mine. My grandmother was very holy/devout. I rewired her one one day. Put in an LED. And a battery. And a remote. The power used to go frequently back then. I’d wait for the right moments. Whenever she’d mention God with the power off I tapped the remote in my pocket. It was a miracle! God was watching over us!
Hehehehehehehehe
Jesus. Wistfully looking upwards. Towards himself.
I remember it like it was yesterday, it’s 50 years next year. We weren’t long moved in and a priest from the new church nearby called and wrote in our names at the bottom there.
He brought a bag of sweets for us to share, which was nice.
It’s still up in our kitchen, with eyes following you around the room.
The one in a house we stayed in last year appeared to have a veiny shaft. We referred to him as Horny Jesus: [https://imgur.com/a/JHCfEBM](https://imgur.com/a/JHCfEBM)
I work in the waste and recycling industry. I was at a big transfer station down in Brighton and they had a long concrete corridor down the back with hundreds of sacred heart of jesus’, Marys, virgin statues, you name it. The lads were picking them out of the loads coming in.
Middle easterners sure were white back then. He looks like the guy IT send up to fix the big printer that’s eating paper again.
Ah look at him there with the big Harry Kane head on him
I have a small family hardware shop. Cant get the sacred heart anymore. I’d be able to sell them no bother, get asked for 1 every week. I still regularly sell the small crucafix bulbs for them
So hot right now for cottage restorations, to fit with the authentic or recreated dresser, Belfast sink, and the range / cooking stove.
just had a flashback that if our parents thought we were lying about something we had to tell the truth to the sacred heart. Was that a thing in other people’s homes?
My father still has his up on the wall
In the sitting room. I’m moving in there in the next few months as he sadly passed and I *really* am not religious, but I’m also terrified of tempting fate my removing it!
My grandparents had one in their kitchen but hung slightly too low so every week Jesus would whack me in the back of the head with the corner of his little candle shelf.
My parents have a sacred heart in the kitchen and they had this hologram-type picture of Jesus on the cross (dunno what to call it) where he was all covered in blood and his eyes were closed, and when you waked passed the picture his eyes would suddenly open. That was gas. Scarier than any Halloween decoration I’ve ever seen.
Of course I was used to it but it terrified my friends. I remember one of the lads staying over one night running into my room in tears because they went down to the kitchen for a glass of water in the middle of the night and the Jesus picture opened his eyes to look at him.
Never mind where they went, where did they come from? Holy water fonts for inside the front door too. Nowhere sells them. They just appear.
You say this as if it isn’t still pride of place in my parent’s kitchen. I think they also have a carving of the last supper as you come in the front door.
There used to be one in my granny’s house and the light would never go off even when the power was out. An older cousin informed me it was a Jesus powered light bulb and that’s why it was never off.
I was probably 16 before I thought to question it.
I wouldn’t have one myself but the one in the family home now has a small shelf underneath acting as a bit of a shrine to people we’ve lost, it’s lovely in fairness
Just stayed in a house in West Cork, and they were everywhere.
That brings back memories. There was an empty house next door to my granny’s house and that red light was always on in the front room. As kids we found it scary.
I always remember if we weren’t sure if the power was gone out we’d take a quick look at the Sacred heart picture.
I came across about 6 various Jesus and Mary’s pictures and lights wrapped in newspaper in my ma’s shed. They were the ones from both sets of grandparents. She doesn’t have enough of a belief to hang them, but still has too much of the fear to throw them out.
In college, one of my friends moved into a house with one of these on the wall. She was telling us about the freaky picture with the exposed heart on the wall.
We were all expecting something very strange, so seeing a sacred heart there was very amusing.
Her family wasn’t religious at all, so she’d never seen one before. The rest of us had experience with our grannies or parents having one up.
They’re gone, they’re all gone, gone the way of the little statuettes and small holy water holders. Never to darken (or redden) a sitting room wall again, the only place left for them is in memory.
All the while those inoffensive yet uninspired landscape “paintings” your mam bought from the travelling “artist” still sit smugly on the wall, knowing they and they alone have achieved immortality.
You can have your opinions on the way people’s homes were decorated in the 80s and 90s but at least they had character, everybody’s homes are so fucking dull and cold now!
Builder in 2000 asked my Atheist wife where she would like the Sacred Heart.
Pretty sure he would have needed lots of lube.