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Child Item

Moving Statues

Sir Osis of Liver.

Just watched a clip on Reeling in the Years about the Moving Statues in the 80"s.
Anyone old enough to remember the mass hysteria that swept across Ireland at the time?
Did you or your family go to see them?
Perhaps you witnessed a concrete Mary breakdancing on her plinth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_statues
Twas all the go for a while.

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greenflash

spankysue wrote: »

I remember telling a non national guy that

He had no nationality whatsoever?

Lapin

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I remember people here in Galway going to see what they thought was Jesus face on the wall of a church, apparently 100s went to see it.

Think it was in Fahy.

Twas indeed. Fahy church near Eyrecourt.

It was a great money spinner for the church, a few burger vans and the stalls that sell plastic statues of Jesus, Mary and other tat for a couple of weeks about 20 years ago.

Hundreds of people were arriving every day to have a gawk at the wall at something that looked like damp patch and say alleluia to each other.

The novelty was showing no signs to wear off and the locals began to get a bit fed up of all these 'pilgrims' clogging up the roads by parking everywhere and anywhere and leaving a mess after them.

So early one morning a couple of gentlemen (who will remain nameless) arrived at the church with a bucket of warm soapy water, and a few of sponges and had a go at the damp patch.

And that was the end of Jesus and his pesky fans around the quiet roads of Fahy Church.

greenie

Duggy747 wrote: »

Was covered in Brass Eye :pac:

Oh God, first time I'm seeing this video...cracked up at the part where Mary drove in to get petrol

:D:D in tears here

:D:D

efb

Do you remember the OFAH classic with the crying statue?

Del got the roof fixed!

Yakult

Came here to offer advice on how to move a statue safely, instead its about statues that move themselves... might as well right my letter to Santa and load my shotgun for that bastard Bunny that comes around Easter.

Paully D

Moving statues are a poor mans Holy Stone of Clonrichert.

BillyMitchel

Elbaston wrote: »

Wasn't there some talk of a miraculous moving statue on Grafton street.

Nah that was just the lads knocking the head off Phil Lynott.

Canis Lupus

Tweej wrote: »

Don't blink.

Can I close one eye at a time or would that be cheating?

Femme_Fatale

Ha, I didn't know about the Rathkeale tree stump - only 2009! Father Ted predicted it with St Kevin's Stump!

I remember the moving statue of Ballinspittle (lol) so well. Was in the front room, it was pissing rain (1985 was a really crap summer), my brothers were playing Subbuteo and I was listening to Larry Gogan. My mother dashed in and changed the station to Radio 1 to listen to the news as she'd heard from someone about a moving statue in Cork.

It was such a huge news story - and dragged on for ages.

Went down to see it with my mother, gran, aunt and cousins. There were huge crowds there.

Utterly mad!

Fox_In_Socks

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Ha, I didn't know about the Rathkeale tree stump - only 2009! Father Ted predicted it with St Kevin's Stump!

I remember the moving statue of Ballinspittle (lol) so well. Was in the front room, it was pissing rain (1985 was a really crap summer), my brothers were playing Subbuteo and I was listening to Larry Gogan. My mother dashed in and changed the station to Radio 1 to listen to the news as she'd heard from someone about a moving statue in Cork.

It was such a huge news story - and dragged on for ages.

Went down to see it with my mother, gran, aunt and cousins. There were huge crowds there.

Utterly mad!

Did it move for you?

Executive Steve

Can't believe nobody posted this yet!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZjM83wZmWw

rustedtrumpet

What month was this in? September/October? Liberty cap season?

Zen65

Sir Osis of Liver. wrote: »

Anyone old enough to remember the mass hysteria that swept across Ireland at the time?

I do remember that period quite well. I get quite irritated thinking about it for so many reasons.

Firstly it was pretty clear that the people who saw "movement" in the statues had been staring at the damn thing for long periods, which can create an optical illusion of movement. Many journalists did comment on this at the time and I remember one writing an article saying that she had stared at a lamp post for a period of time and found that it also appeared to move. The same journalist told how she saw midges flying around the lights in Mary's halo, but some of the worshippers angrily told her these were 'angels'.

There are lunatics in all walks of life and giving them any attention is unhelpful, but the media went to town on the statues story and pretty soon Ireland became an international laughing stock. Nobody tried to film the movements to discredit the story, and even the church stayed silent as they were delighted with the attention. I drove through Ballinaspittle towards the end of the 80's and when I passed the grotto there was still a crowd there, years after the statue had last been 'seen to move'.

For some reason people chose to believe that an all-powerful god could only communicate with them by making statues appear to wobble, or make the sun appear to dance and spin in the sky. What kind of god did people think they were worshipping?

(Incidentally Catholics seem to ignore the fact that that their scripture forbids them to make carved images of anything that resides in heaven, which includes statues or images of God, Jesus, or Mary. It's the first of the commandments that Moses claims to have received, so it should surely not be forgotten so easily??? That's for another rant some time.)

When the statue was vandalised (smashed to pieces) there was uproar. It received the kind of response from the public & media that you might have expected if the IRA had knee-capped in 'informer'. The guy who smashed the statue was vilified, but I must say he won my admiration. The replacement statue was apparently disabled as it was not observed to move. The crowds still came for a while, but since their god was unable to move this new statue people lost interest and moved on.

This is the story from the 80's that most makes me wish I had emigrated.

Z

donegal_road

Mozzeltoff wrote: »

It happened two years before I was born, my father used to pull the living piss out of his cousins that went down to see it! :P Also my mate lived a few miles outside Rathkeale and I remember the whole hub bub about the tree stump in the church yard..

for me, the story about the tree stump prompted this question, where was the rest of the tree? There must have been an entire tree trunk with the effigy of the virgin mary inside, lying somewhere un-prayed to...they could have sliced it like ham, and given a section to each county. Imagine the trade from tourism, Lourdes, Knock etc

Mozzeltoff

They cut the tree down and the remaining stump was in the "image" and "shape" of the virgin Mary

Christ the Redeemer

I was five at the time. I remember hearing about them, though.

The_Kew_Tour

just like when people think they have seen a ghost.

Your mind plays tricks, or for some it lets you see what you want too.

The Narrator

If there are any of these moving statues currently, please let me know.

I can be contacted at 1800-DELBOY

bodhrandude

For we're the moving statues, statues on the move.
We're the moving statues movement and movement is what we choose.
Its like a Friday night in Glenamaddy when the statues move.

For years you foolish people have flocked all towards Rome
To gaze at silly lazy lumps of marble and of stone
Come to us just paint and plaster but we bleed, convulse and glow
We're Ireland's holy show.

A few verses from a song composed by Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely.

renraw

Like Elvis Presley!

Wibbs

Oh I remember it well alright. A few mates parents made the 'pilgrimage' to the place(and others, they were movin all over the kip). For me it was the last mass gasp of the old catholic Ireland looking down the barrel of the youngest population in Europe and it's own near extinction. Not long after the backlash agin the church really gained pace. A lot happened in less than a decade, between say 77 and 87. In the 70s the pope was playing to nigh on two thirds of the population, by the late 80's you'd have been lucky to muster enough to fill Croke Park never mind the Phoenix park.

gobnaitolunacy

The moving statue 'mania'.

Quite possibly the most bizarre episode in recent Irish history.

sbsquarepants

has to be one of the maddest events in recent irish history - literally half the country went insane. You absolutely couldn't make this shít up:D

Sam Kade

sbsquarepants wrote: »

has to be one of the maddest events in recent irish history - literally half the country went insane. You absolutely couldn't make this shít up:D

Half the country went insane :rolleyes: most went out of curiosity. In the days of no Internet, social media the only source of information were newspapers, rte and gossip.

RikkFlair

Femme_Fatale wrote: »

Ha, I didn't know about the Rathkeale tree stump - only 2009!

How could you have missed this extraordinary event :pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCVmc885-ns

The speech captions are the best

NIMAN

Wasn't there a story too about the sun doing strange things? Wobbling or something?

I think I recall a guy on the news saying that "if you look up at the sun for a while you can see it dancing/shimmering/moving".

Yeah, stare at the sun and that'll happen ok, its your eyes telling you they're fecked.

gobnaitolunacy

NIMAN wrote: »

Wasn't there a story too about the sun doing strange things? Wobbling or something?

I think I recall a guy on the news saying that "if you look up at the sun for a while you can see it dancing/shimmering/moving".

Yeah, stare at the sun and that'll happen ok, its your eyes telling you they're fecked.

That was in Knock a few years ago.

studiorat

Got into a Taxi one night coming home from work and got chatting to the Taxi driver as you do. He asked me did I recognize him off the telly which was a bit weird, Turns out he was one of the fellas who took a hammer to the statues!

branie

I went to Lourdes that year

Rented Mule

Trigger Happy wrote: »

And in breaking news, the celebrated actor John Wayne has died.

I remember getting the 'end of the decade' roundup issue of Newsweek Magazine. In this issue, they did background stories on all of the celebrities that had passed away in the 70s. John Wayne had only died a few months before this issue had come out. I'll never forget the entire story that was written under his picture. It was ll that needed to be said.

Man. Movie Star. Legend.