A movement that caught on
QUESTION What sparked the outbreak of sightings of moving statues in Ireland in the 1980s?
DURING 1985, so many religious statues were seen to move in Ireland that it was dubbed ‘the year of the moving statues’.
No satisfactory explanation has ever been found as to why so many people saw so many statues moving, but various explanations have been put forward.
People with intense religious faith may have genuinely seen moving statues, or it could have been a case of mass hysteria.
Scientists at UCC who probed the phenomenon came up with a much more rational explanation.
They said that the apparent movements of statues was an optical illusion, caused by staring for long periods of time at the crowns of electric lights adorning the Virgin Mary’s head on statues.
Others, such as the anthropologist Peter Mulholland said that Marian apparitions in Irish society are a sign of psychological insecurity, derived mainly from bad childhood experiences, but also as a result of cultural, historical, political, religious and sociological factors coming into play.
Seeing apparitions is nothing new; after all, in 1879, the apparition of the Virgin Mary was seen on the wall of the church at Knock, which has since become a major pilgrimage site.
But the rash of sightings in the mid-1980s began in early 1984, when a group of children reported seeing statues moving inside the church at Asdee, Co. Kerry. The incidents there were widely reported and may have helped encourage the wave of sightings the following year.
The most famous moving statue was at Ballinspittle, near Kinsale, Co. Cork, almost exactly 35 years ago. The first sighting there was made on the evening of July 22, 1985. Kathy O’Mahony, one of the volunteer caretakers of the Marian shrine there was out for a walk that evening with her two daughters. They stopped to pray at the statue, then all of a sudden, as they all knelt in prayer, Kathy saw that the statue seemed to come alive, giving the impression that the statue was breathing.
Between the end of July and throughout August that year, the word spread quickly, so much so that upwards of 100,000 people came to see the moving statue at Ballinspittle. During 1985, a total of 31 religious statues were reported as having shape-shifted, in many different parts of the country. The summer of 1985 was also very wet, although it’s unlikely the poor weather conditions had any influence.
At the time, the Catholic Church remained highly sceptical about the phenomenon and one bishop went so far as to declare it an ‘illusion’. Others took their scepticism further; in October, 1985, a group of Pentecostalist protesters armed with hammers descended on Ballinspittle and damaged the statue.
The moving statue syndrome died a quick death although a few small cults persisted in similar claims for a few years afterwards and one fervent Irish believer even set off for Russia, to try and convert that country, but with little or no success.
On occasions since, similar occurrences have happened, such as in Dungloe, west Co. Donegal, in October, 2009. There, large numbers of people reportedly saw a local statue of the Virgin Mary not only moving but weeping and for an hour, crosses were said to have been clearly visible in the night sky.
Also in 2009, thousands of people turned up to pray at a tree stump shaped like Our Lady, in Rathkeale, Co. Limerick, while the most recent apparition has been in the same county. In early December, 2016, people saw an apparition of Our Lady appear on the front of a house at Kilmallock, apparently not the first time she’ s turned up in the town.
But whether the weeping statues really happened, or whether people were imagining them, they had a profound effect on many people of strong religious faith.
One woman who went to the moving statue at Ballinspittle was reported as getting her hearing back after 33 years, while a man who was paralysed down one side as the result of a stroke, walked away from that particular statue a perfectly healthy person.
Growing scepticism and stronger beliefs in technological explanations may have ensured that the phenomenon hasn’t happened on a mass scale again in recent years.
Curiously enough, during the great economic crash that started in 2008, reports of moving statues were quite scarce.
But as the country braces for the post- Covid years ahead, the statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary might be tempted to start moving and shaking again.
Patrick McCarthy, Co. Tipperary.
QUESTION Do supermarkets Lidl and Aldi have shareholders?
LIDL, like its rival discounter Aldi, is a privately owned German business so it doesn’t have to answer to shareholders.
The Lidl story began in 1930 when Josef Schwarz became a partner in Sudfruchte Groshandel Lidl & Co.
Josef’s son, Dieter, founded Schwartz Group, a retailer specialising in discounted supermarkets and wholesale markets in 1977. Dieter chose not to call the firm Schwartz-Markt, which translates as black market. Instead, he bought the name from the original store’s co-owner Ludwig Lidl for 1,000 marks.
Aldi dates to 1913 when the mother of Karl and Theo Albrecht opened a shop in a suburb of Essen. The supermarket gets its name from Albrecht and the word Diskont.
In 1946, the brothers began to rapidly expand the business. In the 1960s, following an argument over whether to sell tobacco, the company split into Aldi Nord, run by Theo with its headquarters in Essen, and Aldi Sud, run by Karl and based in Mulheim.
The two groups operate in tandem around the world. When you shop at an Aldi in Australia, Ireland, Britain or China, you’re shopping at Aldi Sud. In France, Denmark or Poland, you’re a customer of Aldi Nord.
Ollie Dunn, via email.
QUESTION Where is Blanco Canyon, which featured in the film The Big Country?
FURTHER to the previous answer, The Big Country was one of many Hollywood westerns filmed at Red Rock Canyon State Park.
It is famous for its stunning rock formations and hoodoos — tall, thin rock spires that line the canyon.
The area was a lake ten million years ago. Sediment that flowed down from the nearby Sierra Nevada mountains was deposited in layers. Time and pressure turned this into rock, and plate tectonics pushed the area upward.
Wind and water have eroded the surface of the sedimentary layers to reveal the stunning structures we see today.
Janet Carr, Durham.
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