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.

Where were you when ..... ?

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