atoast2toast.com

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

- The Beatles

NEARLY 2,000 people have signed a petition seeking to prevent the removal of a tree stump on the grounds of a Co Limerick church, which they believe depicts an image of the Blessed Virgin.

Scores of people from across the country gathered to say prayers at Holy Mary Parish Church in Rathkeale yesterday where workmen made the discovery while cutting down trees earlier this week.

“People have been coming from Kerry and Clare to see this tree, which we believe shows a clear outline of Our Lady,” he continued. Mr Hogan said the discovery was bringing people from all walks of life to Rathkeale to pray.

“It’s doing no harm and it’s bringing people together from young and old to black and white, Protestant and Catholic, to say a few prayers, so what’s wrong with that? There’s enough violence and intolerance going on in the world,” he said.

According to Noel White, Rathkeale Community Council graveyard committee chairman, the trees were cut down because of old age and the danger they posed to the adjacent schoolyard. “These trees will be replaced. However, I have given assurance that our committee will not be removing this tree stump. Nature has a funny way of showing things up and let it be a freak of nature or something else, but, whatever it is, surely it is a wonderful thing to see so many people coming out to pray, especially young people who have been saying the rosary in the church for the past few nights.”

Local parish priest Fr Willie Russell said on radio station Limerick Live 95FM yesterday that people should not worship the tree. “There’s nothing there . . . it’s just a tree . . . you can’t worship a tree.”

A spokesman for the Limerick diocesan office said the “church’s response to phenomena of this type is one of great scepticism”.

“While we do not wish in any way to detract from devotion to Our Lady, we would also wish to avoid anything which might lead to superstition,” he said.

irishtimes.com

The Virgin Mary has returned to Ireland in the darkest times we have seen since the year of our lord nineteen eighty five.

21 years ago Ireland was gripped by a frenzy of moving statues. But was 1985 a summer of madness, or real miracles?

It was one of the wettest Irish summers on record, I began – and that took some doing. Mr Sarkar didn’t blink as I told him that in 1985 in fields and on roadsides all over Ireland statues of the Virgin Mary left their stone plinths to hover above the ground and wave their hands manically.

The first reported sighting of a moving Madonna came in late July – by a 17-year-old in Ballinspittle. Another was reported at Mount Mellory in Waterford.

A whole spate followed suit and there was a myriad of reports from many parishes across the country of statues on the move. Each evening folk in their thousands would gather at their chosen grotto to pray. Media crews from round the world descended on Ballinspittle and other sites to broadcast the phenomenon to all and sundry.

In my view, the summer of moving statues was not a time of great pride. A few rural folk thought the moving statues were a veritable bloody miracle; most of us just feared that internationally we were all looking like blooming eejit paddies again. We loathed the international stereotyping that ensued, and jokes about condoms smuggled across the border surfaced again.

21 years ago in 1989, it was indeed a wetter than normal Irish summer. Far from the heady tiger economy of recent times, the state of the nation was to put it mildly depressed.

Unemployment was as high as 16%, and our only real valuable export was our people. Not since the famine had there been such an enforced exodus – the great brain drain.

it turned a little sour:

At the end of the Summer of 1985, vandals attacked the statue at Ballinspittle claiming it was a portent of evil. The icon had become a false idol in the vandals view. The media went away and the statue was restored by a local religious sculptor.

there was a visit by a famous author

Acclaimed author Paulo Coehlo, who visited Mount Mellory in Waterford as part of a follow-up documentary on the Moving Statues in, had a slightly different take.

“To accept faith, you have to be a little crazy. God has hidden the wisdom from wise men. He reveals himself to the crazy people,” he said.

http://www.explore.ie/ireland/article.php?ID=168&page=1

A watercolour image of Fr Brennan (the bishop from Limerick as it happened) appeared on Craggy Island:

I can find images of the virgin appearing more convincingly on the outside of a tree:

and inside a shoe

One has to bear in mind that all this happened in “irelands only mobile town”, Rathkeale. It is home to a large amount of travellers. Thanks to feensham for this lovely photo: