Where were you when ..... ?

JuliusCaesar · 16-02-2015 10:03pm #1

It's 30 years this year since the statues moved in Ireland.

I was living in London, absolutely mortified at the antics of my compatriots at home.

Everyone was asking me about it.

:mad:

Jellybaby1 · 17-02-2015 12:51am

This seems to be a topic at the moment, heard it on the wireless a few days ago. Can't remember where I was exactly but definitely Dublin. I do remember mortification setting in. Daftest thing I ever heard. Always felt it was invented to drum up some touristy business. Some locals made a whack of cash selling teas on the road up to the statue.

muffler · 17-02-2015 1:13am

I think I was having afternoon tea with the fairies at the bottom of the garden when I first heard about a mobile statue

geosynchronous orbit · 17-02-2015 11:15am

Went to see them in Ballinspittle at the time when I was 15 or 16.

We had the cousins over from London on holidays and my mother brought about 6 of us up for the laugh. It was the best craic ever and we nearly wet our selves laughing at the loolaahs getting all over come with the 'moving' statues.

When we get together at weddings and funerals, that night is always remembered fondly for all the wrong reasons. (or maybe the right reasons)

Poor Uncle Tom · 18-02-2015 8:20pm

I lost a serious amount of hay that and the next year, about 30 acres gone to the ditches, so the statues were the last thing on my mind that year, I do remember a lot of people convinced that they had seen them move.

It was also the year of the Air India Disaster off the south coast, 329 killed, I remember crying when I heard that...:o

Live Aid made lots of money for famine victims in Africa and the wreck of the Titanic was found.

I want to know what love is by Foreigner, 19 by Paul Hardcastle, I'm on Fire by The Boss, Frankie by Sister Sledge, The power of love by Jenifer Rush
were all number ones that year.

lulu1 · 18-02-2015 8:26pm

muffler wrote: »

I think I was having afternoon tea with the fairies at the bottom of the garden when I first heard about a mobile statue

And I think your'e away with them since

Thats me banned now goodbye

muffler · 18-02-2015 9:36pm

lulu1 wrote: »

And I think your'e away with them since

Ah sure that's old news

OldGoat · 19-02-2015 10:23am

I'm convinced that due to the destruction of fairy mounds, dells, glades and other fairy property that the wild countryside fairies are now becoming urbanised and are living in traffic lights.

Rubecula · 20-02-2015 12:21am

Not the Weeping Angels is it? :eek::eek::eek:

looksee · 20-02-2015 9:29am

Whats not the Weeping Angels?, sounds like a bunch of bikers :pac:

MrWalsh · 20-02-2015 9:45am

I remember thinking people had gone a bit doolally about the moving statues alright.

A few years ago I visited a place near or in Waterford that had a grotto where people claimed the statues moved. The guy running the place we stayed in explained that there was a religious orders run dry out clinic nearby and thats who got the moving statues story started. A good dose of the DTs and the statues would dance about for anyone.

looksee · 20-02-2015 9:54am

It really was weird, I think the whole country was suffering from depression and anxiety and desperate for a bit of diversion. Staggering the number of people who went to watch statues.

The Peanut · 20-02-2015 10:08am

I remember our whole family going to join the queues at both Melleray and Ballinspittle. My younger sister was making her communion at the time and had found God in a big way. She cried on the way home both times because she saw nothing moving.:(

Not helped by the fact that I kept whispering to her that she wasn't praying hard enough and wouldn't be able to make her communion.:o

Oh the daftness of it all.

looksee · 20-02-2015 1:23pm

On the whole, and apart from the 'international embarrassment' I think the skeptics got more entertainment out of it than the ones who went to watch!

Jellybaby1 · 20-02-2015 9:11pm

looksee wrote: »

It really was weird, I think the whole country was suffering from depression and anxiety and desperate for a bit of diversion. Staggering the number of people who went to watch statues.

Well, with the state this country is in at the moment, methinks its time for another walkabout. Just for a bit of the oul' deevarsion!!

Owryan · 20-02-2015 9:16pm

Remember the whole country going mad for moving statues.

Was a kid at the time but got dragged to a grotto up in St Dympna's in Carlow every evening just in case the statue decided to dance a jig

muffler · 21-02-2015 12:28am

Fianna Fail claimed it was an optical illusion as it was the country that was moving and not the statues

CUCINA · 21-02-2015 2:58pm

Where were you when you first heard that Elvis had died?

First I heard about it was when I was on a night out with work colleagues. We were in a cabaret venue in Portmarnock and as the waiter came to our table to collect glasses he said, "that's terrible about Elvis, isn't it?".
I remember we were all stunned when he told us, definitely took the edge off our night of fun!
Almost equally hard to believe now is that it was 38 years ago...jeezz, I feel old...maybe that's because I am...well sort of...

Poor Uncle Tom · 21-02-2015 4:22pm

CUCINA wrote: »

Where were you when you first heard that Elvis had died?

First I heard about it was when I was on a night out with work colleagues. We were in a cabaret venue in Portmarnock and as the waiter came to our table to collect glasses he said, "that's terrible about Elvis, isn't it?".
I remember we were all stunned when he told us, definitely took the edge off our night of fun!
Almost equally hard to believe now is that it was 38 years ago...jeezz, I feel old...maybe that's because I am...well sort of...

Elvis is dead?

muffler · 21-02-2015 4:57pm

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

Elvis is dead?

Brilliant

Jellybaby1 · 21-02-2015 11:31pm

I was in bed asleep. Himself woke me up. Unusual to be woken up by himself unless the world was at an end so I already knew something was up. When he told me Elvis was dead I knew the world had ended!

Not a big fan at that time as I knew he wasn't looking or sounding his best. But I loved his music. I think he's earning more now from TV adverts than he ever earned from his films. Just thinking if he'd changed his life and turned himself around.....sure he might have even ended up on the Late Late Show!

Now before anyone tells me, I know Elvis didn't write the songs but his voice was magic.

Redhenrun · 22-02-2015 9:13am

I didn't spot any moving statues at the time, but then I didn't go out to spot them either. I do recall that 1985 was one heck of a very wet miserable summer and that, along with our economic woes, and the storms brewing in the Catholic church, probably sent a lot of people right off their heads and down some fanciful imaginary track.

It all looks even more ridiculous now thirty years on. When people are desperate enough for hope, they'll believe anything-isn't that how so many people ended up following Nazism in 1930s Germany?

But, in answer to the OP question: I was in Ireland, standing in the rain, but nowhere near Melleray, Ballinaspittle or any other grotto.

looksee · 22-02-2015 9:29am

Jim Reeves died in the summer of 1964. I was with a group of friends camping somewhere - probably in North Yorkshire - we were sitting round a fire listening to someone's transistor radio when the announcement came on that he had died in a plane crash.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpK6vFc86r0

JuliusCaesar · 22-02-2015 11:58pm

Where were you when you heard that the Argentinians had invaded the Falklands?

In bed. Turned the radio on sleepily, and heard this. Wondered how the hell they had crossed the Atlantic and got to the Sheplands without anyone noticing. Yes I thought the Falklands were somewhere to the north of Scotland.

Felt like a right eejit later. Then discovered I wasn't alone

Rubecula · 23-02-2015 11:03pm

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Where were you when you heard that the Argentinians had invaded the Falklands?

In bed. Turned the radio on sleepily, and heard this. Wondered how the hell they had crossed the Atlantic and got to the Sheplands without anyone noticing. Yes I thought the Falklands were somewhere to the north of Scotland.

Felt like a right eejit later. Then discovered I wasn't alone

I had a really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach over the Falklands war. The RAF squadron I had been on went down there and all I could think of were the lads (and lasses) who traveled so far just to fight. Glad I was not there but very oddly I also thought I should be. Anyway as I say awful feelings.

Jellybaby1 · 24-02-2015 4:02pm

Scarey days all right. I remember reading about some poor guy who decided to leave America or Canada or somewhere and decided the safest place in the world to live was the Falklands...............and moved there! Just before the war broke out! Talk about bad decisions!

muffler · 24-02-2015 5:09pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Scarey days all right. I remember reading about some poor guy who decided to leave America or Canada or somewhere and decided the safest place in the world to live was the Falklands...............and moved there! Just before the war broke out! Talk about bad decisions!

The decision was probably right. Terrible timing though

Mesrine65 · 28-02-2015 5:37pm

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

This seems to be a topic at the moment, heard it on the wireless a few days ago.

I'm 50, how old are you?

looksee · 28-02-2015 9:51pm

Mesrine65 wrote: »

I'm 50, how old are you?

50? hmph, barely old enough to be in here, never mind questioning the technical terminology used by the residents.

kingchess · 28-02-2015 11:53pm

remember the moving statues as well,my parents were delighted but were not too happy when my brother pointed out to them that if you stared long enough at a county council worker you would swear they were moving too.

Jellybaby1 · 01-03-2015 1:04am

Mesrine65 wrote: »

I'm 50, how old are you?

You're 50! Good Lord, this forum must seem like double dutch to you then.

Rubecula · 01-03-2015 4:02am

I am 12 and a few months :pac: Not yet worked out how many months make up "a few". :pac:

0lddog · 01-03-2015 3:05pm

Drifting into the OT rough here :

A certain O Dog went off to language night school during the summer.

As an exercise in expressing things that happened in the recent past each in the class had to describe some event ( that had happened recently

)

Mr Dog proceeded halting to relate to the class about the fall of the Berlin wall untill interrupted by another student anouncing :

'Thats not recent, that happened the year I was born'.

I still think of it as recent

........only goes to show

Olddog

( Any 50 year olds on this forum should have an 'N' plate avatar )

OldGoat · 02-03-2015 9:41am

All users of this forum are aged "old". There is no other age here. How old am I? I'm old. How old are you? You're old. This is why the forum exists.

looksee · 02-03-2015 10:04am

Yeah, well I'm doing old old this morning. Could be flu

or maybe i just need breakfast.

cml387 · 02-03-2015 12:04pm

What a strange time. I remember the first I heard of a moving statue was slightly before Ballinspittle.

I was told by someone who had talked to someone who swore that the statue of the Virgin Mary in Kinnegad church had leant down and spread out her arms towards the congregation.:eek:

I'm sure it was slightly after this that Ballinspittle happened.

upyaboya · 09-03-2015 4:29am

where were u when nelsons pillar went up, i was walking home from clery s ballroom

Jellybaby1 · 09-03-2015 12:47pm

Asleep in my bed when it actually happened. Next morning it was on the news and I had to walk past it on my way to secretarial college. Everyone stood around the rubble in silence. There was a very eerie silence, and unlike popular belief, no whoops or cheers. It was a very scary time. Over the next couple of years we experienced several bomb warnings on our street with the gardai knocking on everyone's doors and getting us to either get out or sit on our floors. I remember my poor arthritic mother trying to sit on the floor and then later trying to get up again. All the bomb warnings were false. Eejits had the guards, ambulances and fire brigade all running round in circles and everyone terrified. One day in work I had another eejit ring up, I was a receptionist at the time, he said 'there is a brown package on the floor behind you, it's going to explode in three minutes'. I was frozen with terror. Turned out to be a guy from a suppliers who had delivered the package earlier and saw the manager put it on the floor behind me. One of our store men was in on (the joke!) and arrived in time to stop me from screaming. Happy days eh? :mad: Bloody Not!

FueledbyCoffee · 27-03-2015 5:54am

I remember being in a Catholic run primary school and there were statues all over the place. Used to be terrified if I had to do a message for the teacher walking by those statues freaked me out in case one was moving or crying.

Jellybaby1 · 27-03-2015 11:03pm

They fulfilled their purpose then. Watching everyone, making sure ye were all behaving yourselves. We went on a cottage holiday many years ago, there was a picture of the sacred heart on the wall. Our family are from a non-holy picture home. The eyes unnerved me, they seemed to follow me around the room. I felt guilty all the time!

FueledbyCoffee · 27-03-2015 11:25pm

It was serious panic, adrenalin pumping, sweating just afraid of my life I'd see something. Laughing at it now but when you're a kid it's terrifying.

Although I have to say Holy pics and statues still freak me out a bit in houses too

Jellybaby1 · 28-03-2015 8:58pm

FueledbyCoffee wrote: »

It was serious panic, adrenalin pumping, sweating just afraid of my life I'd see something. Laughing at it now but when you're a kid it's terrifying.

Although I have to say Holy pics and statues still freak me out a bit in houses too

Can't say I had that excuse as I was in my thirties at the time!

BrensBenz · 12-06-2015 12:37am

I was armed with a brand new electronics qualification and couldn't get an interview. So, when a friend said he wanted some built-in furniture in his half-converted attic, I volunteered. The job also entailed looking after his two rottweillers who patrolled his back garden. This was a pleasure for me but, I was warned, when they approach, you MUST stroke the male first, then the female and then the male again. Otherwise all Hell would break loose.

One day, working away, the doorbell rang and two gorthee, aged about 15 or 16 in their brand new tunics, explained that there had been a kidnapping and asked if I'd mind allowing them in for a quick search. "Of course, guards," I said. Well, one gorthah asked, since I wasn't the owner, what I was doing there so I brought him up to the attic to show him while the second gorthah checked the ground floor.

I then heard a slight "click" and thought "Hmmm, what's that?" "Oh my God, the dogs!" I completely forgot about the dogs and the "click" was the security sensor on the patio door indicating it had been opened. The gorthah and I fought each other to get down the stairs and into the garden.

Well, I could see a wall, a rottweiller on his hind legs with front paws on the wall and something dark blue sandwiched between the wall and the dog's chest. The female was using the upturned gorthah hat as a cross between a frisbee and a portaloo.

I can't remember the dog's name but I shouted it with as much authority as I could. He immediately climbed down and came over to me for his chin-rub.

If I live to be 100 I'll never forget the sight of the gorthah trying to hold back the tears as he assessed the grass-stains, claw marks, mud and slobber all over his face, his beautiful shirt and tunic, trousers, shoes......

The other "pristine" gorthah, who had been with me in the attic, was struggling to control laughter, which the female dog found amusing and trotted over to him. "Oh lovely big girl you are, aren't you ohhhhh Je$u$....get him off meeeeeeee".

The male rottie weighed about 10 stone or so but, with that huge chest and on his hind legs, his centre of gravity was very high, too high for the gorthah to support, so down he went onto the muddy lawn - splat! "Get him off spit spit me....Jay$u$...uuugh....spit spit.....Gawwwwwwd."

No bodily harm was done - the dogs were boisterous but gentle, in their own way! We cleaned up the uniforms as best we could but, really, they were only fit for the bin.

Their investigations for that day were over several hours early so I can't help thinking that the rotties and I may have delayed the release of Dr. Herema by those several hours.

feargale · 12-06-2015 12:48am

upyaboya wrote: »

where were u when nelsons pillar went up, i was walking home from clery s ballroom

I was in my bed in the digs in Phobsboro and heard it.
A few days previously I passed it and thought about climbing it as I hadn't done so for some time. I decided not to, thinking I would do it another day. There was to be no other day. While the destruction didn't rank with all the murders committed later, it was one of the most ignorant acts ever done here by a bunch of yobs.

feargale · 12-06-2015 12:56am

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

Where were you when you heard that the Argentinians had invaded the Falklands?

In bed. Turned the radio on sleepily, and heard this. Wondered how the hell they had crossed the Atlantic and got to the Sheplands without anyone noticing. Yes I thought the Falklands were somewhere to the north of Scotland.

Felt like a right eejit later. Then discovered I wasn't alone

Who did you discover you were sleeping with?

Duiske · 12-06-2015 1:03am

CUCINA wrote: »

Where were you when you first heard that Elvis had died?

First I heard about it was when I was on a night out with work colleagues. We were in a cabaret venue in Portmarnock and as the waiter came to our table to collect glasses he said, "that's terrible about Elvis, isn't it?".
I remember we were all stunned when he told us, definitely took the edge off our night of fun!
Almost equally hard to believe now is that it was 38 years ago...jeezz, I feel old...maybe that's because I am...well sort of...

I had a paper round when I was 8/9, and remember a headline in the Evening Press shortly before he died. "Elvis Eating Himself To Death" Looking back now I must have been a fairly thick 8 or 9 year old, because my first thought was I hoped he didn't eat his fingers or he wouldn't be able to play the guitar.

spurious · 14-06-2015 10:27pm

Re Elvis.

We (7 of us) were on holiday in a 4 berth caravan that my Dad had installed what we called 'Roots' bunkbeds, modelled on the coffin ships to fit us all in.

We were listening to the radio and Larry Gogan announced it at ten to eleven. At eleven we turned over to Radio Luxembourg, where they claimed to be the first in Europe with the news. but we knew the truth.

Pulsating Star · 15-06-2015 9:44pm

The day of the announcement of Princess Diana's death is the one that will always stick with me.
I was working on a new wing to Chelmsford hospital and I had the place to myself for the weekend. I rarely had a radio with me at work but I had gone to the trouble of organising one,long leads,and transformer and was looking forward to cranking up the volume while I ran around on price work. I was buzzing!
Got set up on the morn, about to get stuck in, switched it on. - What?

Dum dum ,,dumdum, dum dum dumdum, Chopins funeral march and all sorts of somber stuff,,,,all day long, on every station I could get.

Every station - all day - what a downer.

Jellybaby1 · 15-06-2015 9:50pm

Can't remember where I was that day. Just remember being in shock over the whole thing. I recorded the whole funeral. Will probably never look at it again though.

Mike Guide 69 · 18-06-2015 4:37pm

Pulsating Star wrote: »

The day of the announcement of Princess Diana's death is the one that will always stick with me.
I was working on a new wing to Chelmsford hospital and I had the place to myself for the weekend. I rarely had a radio with me at work but I had gone to the trouble of organising one,long leads,and transformer and was looking forward to cranking up the volume while I ran around on price work. I was buzzing!
Got set up on the morn, about to get stuck in, switched it on. - What?

Dum dum ,,dumdum, dum dum dumdum, Chopins funeral march and all sorts of somber stuff,,,,all day long, on every station I could get.

Every station - all day - what a downer.

I remember that day distinctly meself, (well sort of.......), i was at the U2 gig in the Old Lansdowne Road the night before , cracking gig, was near the front of the stage with 2 mates who i was renting a house with in Swords

Was out of it after too may sherberts and when I woke up next day around middday, i was alone in the house as 2 lads went home for the Sunday Mammy dinner. Unfortunately for me, since I was one of the many "country cousins" who was up in the "big smoke", i couldnt avail of this and so had planned to head down to "The Lord Mayors" to watch a footy match and get some soakage.

I switched on the telly onto BBC and bleary eyed, saw the Union Jack been flown at half mast, with "God Save The Queen" been blasted out.

Very surreal moment it was, and of course yours truly,the first thought that comes into my head says:

"Ah for f***s sake, i bet the Liverpool match will be called off".

I was never renowned for my timing!!!!

MrWalsh · 18-06-2015 4:43pm

Pulsating Star wrote: »

The day of the announcement of Princess Diana's death is the one that will always stick with me.

Id been at the U2 gig the night before and had a terrible migraine after it so I went straight home to bed and woke up the next day with a much milder hangover than Id expected.

Then my bf at the time came in and told me that he heard on the radio that Princess Diana had been in a car accident, a while later we knew she was dead. It was very sad.

Where were you when ..... ?

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