On this day, 40 years ago, Ireland was gripped by the “miracle” of the Moving Statues.

by TheStoicNihilist

18 comments
  1. Worst summer ever. So bad people starting seeing things.

  2. Religion really does bring out the worst delusions in people.

    Should I free the women in state sanctioned slavery?

    Nah make a concrete statue of Mary give us a smirk there and a bit of a cry.

  3. A different time. But even so, the same sort of people still exist today. It’s just that the nature of what they believe is different.

    It’s also worth remembering that not everyone believed in this stuff at the time. Most didn’t.

  4. My mother said this moment is what convinced her to emigrate out of Ireland despite having a good job in the depths of the 1980s

  5. I remember my grandparents dragging us down to Ballinspittle to look at the statue. Miserable day out.

  6. We put a handwritten “Out of Order” sign up on the one in the grounds of our school.

    Local priest was not happy. Hours of detention were threatened for everyone, but we were strong and snitch-free.

    Statue still out of order alas.

  7. >The Catholic Church remained reticent or highly skeptical and a bishop declared the whole phenomenon ‘an illusion’.[2]

    > The Ballinspittle statue was damaged by a gang[contentious label] of hammer-wielding Pentecostal protesters against idolatry (or Mariolatry), led by Robert Draper, who was found guilty to smashing other statues and went on to do six months in prison

  8. Got into a taxi one night, driver asked me did I recognise him. He was one of the fellas that took a hammer to the statues. 

  9. If only the Cork hurlers had been as mobile on Sunday 

  10. Dragged to Ballonspittle by mum and a gaggle of mad aunts… the only thing that made sense was the bloke with the chip van.

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