The 'moving' statue of Ballinspittle
About this episode
The episode discusses the phenomenon of a moving statue of the Virgin Mary in Ballinspittle, Ireland, in 1985, through the memories of Ita Dungan.
In 1985, reports of a moving statue of the Virgin Mary drew thousands of people to the village of Ballinspittle in County Cork, Ireland. Helen Ledwick speaks to Ita Dungan, who travelled there as a teenager and remembers the crowds gathering at the shrine. Similar reports soon spread across Ireland, and that summer became known as the 'summer of the moving statues'. Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories. When you subscribe to Witness History, you’ll be taken inside turning points in world affairs from West Africa’s fight back against Boko Haram in 2015 to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations. You’ll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train…
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