When Ballinspittle's moving stature captured the world's imagination
Archive picture of a statue of the Virgin Mary which is said to have moved spontaneously in Ballinspittle in 1985.
In the early days of July 1985, it looked like another ordinary Irish summer was afoot — misty weeks punctuated with periods of sunshine.
Ireland had beaten Scotland at Murrayfield, Wales at Cardiff and England at Lansdowne Road to finally win the Triple Crown.
Barry McGuigan became World Featherweight champion as Monaghan cheered on the ‘Clones Cyclone. And on July 13th, Bob Geldof organised Live Aid at Wembley, with Ireland honoured as the highest per capita donor.
Then, just as the nation settled down to watch Kerry win the football All-Ireland and Offaly dominate the hurling, something truly remarkable began to happen in the quiet village of Ballinspittle, just outside of Kinsale.
On that quiet July 22 evening with not a whole lot else going on, the possibility that a statue had taken leave of its concrete was enough of a distracting notion to rouse much of the nation, myself included, on the road to investigate.
We weren't the only ones engaged on such a Monday mission – as we quickly discovered with all tracks within two miles of the Ballinspittle grotto already jammed solid with abandoned tractors, vans, sheep trailers and cars to witness something otherworldly on Mary Magdalene's feast day. As it would later turn out, this early gridlock was but a drop in the ocean compared to the tidal wave of humanity that would follow in the months ahead.
Was it a trick of the light, a bit of local mischief-making or something of a glorious celestial nature - nobody could say for sure as we strained, squinted and scrutinised the saintly statue. Some swore they saw tears on the stone face, as the piles of gloves, hats, scarves and rosary beads grew larger at its base.
It seemed peculiarly ironic that in the same year that Madonna released ‘Like A Virgin’, the shimmering of a Virgin Mary sculpture in a small Cork town would echo around the world - talk about your life imitating art. Debate grew from local crossroads tattle to a global media torrent as the curiosity begun in Ballinspittle quickly spread across Cork, Munster and out into the wider world.
Within days, there were hundreds coming, and then thousands. As we gazed in wonder from cafés along the Kinsale seafront, the traffic chaos outdid anything ever seen, with crowds one particular hot August night topping the 25,000 mark. In that Irish summer of murky weather, factory closures and pipe dreams of winning the Donnelly Green Card lottery, this ‘miracle’ in the misty south was a wagon the whole world wanted to attach itself to.
“It seemed at first as if she was breathing, then slight motions of the head and the hands,” recalled one of the first witnesses, Catherine O'Mahony. “None of us that first night had any mind to make too much of what we saw, maybe because we didn't understand what was happening - we thought it might just pass.”
But it didn't. News outlets grabbed the story and ran with it - including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Australian and the Hindustan Times.
Even the orthodox Time Magazine weighed in: “Mass hysteria or clever tourist promotion? Scientists examined the statue and pronounced the entire effect an optical illusion. The finding has had little effect on the believers.”
Cork might have been banjaxed from the Ford and Dunlop factory closures, but the Rebel County was still front-page news around the world.
John Murray, the Garda sergeant in the village at the time, did his duty and investigated. “I was sceptical and checked out that statue. I felt someone might have been playing tricks, but I found no wires or trickery there at all. I was so convinced this was a hoax, I searched behind the statue and also tried to move it – it wouldn’t budge.”
In July 1985, this experienced police officer was forced to admit he had witnessed something physically impossible at that grotto. “I saw the concrete statue of Our Lady floating in mid-air. Not rocking to and fro, but floating.”
As the crowds continued to flock to the small village, Sergeant Murray found his days and nights increasingly concerned with crowd control and traffic chaos – yet generally peaceful in front of a phenomenon that defied explanation. “In 1985, there was a mingling of two worlds, our world and the mystical world, and something amazing, it got people praying.”
On the strange summer of 1985, sightings of religious apparitions went global - Oliveto, Italy; Naju, Korea; Vassula, Switzerland; Cleveland, USA; and Ohlau, Poland. It was happening all over Ireland as well, at Asdee, Carns, Dunkitt, Enniscorthy and Foynes, and all with the same essential message - inexplicable occurrences experienced by normal folk who were at odds to understand.
Was it a miracle in that small village outside of Kinsale? Well, if a miracle is something that can't be explained, then maybe it wouldn't be wrong to call it that. Regardless of what belief you subscribe to, the fact remains that something extraordinary happened in Ballinspittle during that legendary summer of ‘85.
