"The Year of the Moving Statues" is a satire on the nation's tendency towards religious hysteria. Set in the fateful year of 1985, the year of the apparitions, the play explores not just religion but our attitude to money, drink, politics, agriculture and wet summers. It is wildly funny and wickedly surreal. To quote the writer "The Year of the Moving Statues represents the Irish mindset as it might have been painted by Salvador Dali" It happened in the middle of a dreadful summer. In fact, it happened in the middle of a dreadful decade. If any year can be said to epitomize the grim desperation of the 1980's it was 1985. First, there was the rain. It started in spring, and didn't stop. A wet April, May and June seemed to promise a fine late summer. But no, July had the deathly grey aspect of winter. It seemed as if all our troubles had combined against us and intensified. The foreign banks were threatening to pull the plug, the north was about to explode and we couldn't save the Hay! But really it was the rain. Thick sheets of horizontal rain, driven by gales, swept the fields, bothrins, streets and footpaths of Ireland. You couldn't go out without getting sodden. Then slowly, a pall of depressive anxiety settled on top of the rising waters. Broadly speaking, people responded to this crises in two ways. Half the population sank into silence, seclusion and dolorous prayerfulness. The other half took to the high stool and drank themselves to distraction. I was a member of the latter. But nothing helped. The hay continued to fail, the economy to dissolve and the north to implode. Then it happened! The only thing unusual about Ballinspittle was the name. Nobody had ever heard of it before. Of course there was nothing at all unusual about the Blessed Virgin appearing. She had done so before, many times. So initially we took no notice but then the numbers grew. The silent prayerful contingent took to the roads. There were buses flying around the country. Crowds, in Munster final proportions, gathered daily in the tiny Cork Village, in the rain. That got our attention. In fact many devout drinkers rose from their stools and took to the buses, abandoning their pints and comrades. First the papers, than the radio took up the story with the studied gravitas of a politician fearing to alienate his constituency. There was no skepticism or disbelief, don't mind mockery. This, we told ourselves, was a great communication from on high, meant solely for the Irish people. The supernatural excitement grew to fever pitch. Then, the moving statue spread her wings. First it was adjacent counties of Cork than, in less than two weeks the phenomena went country wide. There were moving statues everywhere. By early August there was at least one in each of the 32 counties.Then each parish vied to be the first with an apparition. Every grotto was subjected to intense scrutiny. Groans of jealous anguish could be heard when news came of" movement" in a neighboring town. "Why not us ", was the cry in the few locations still not visited by the middle of August. By now the moving statues were on the television. The fever intensified. Eyes turned to the sky.There was a sense abroad that the apparitions were building towards a great singularity. What could it be? Than, a light appeared in the sky over Sligo. Thousands gathered to see it, than tens of thousands. The moving statues were forgotten. Was it the second coming? We were hysterical. The late late show covered the event, it was spectacular.... Then it stopped, never to be mentioned again. Gerry Conneely.
About the Author: Galway playwrite Gerry Conneely. Having abandoned an earlier career in teaching, Conneely spent much of the nineties working in the Galway theater scene. Best known for his performances as George in Punch Bag's production of Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and as Father Jack in Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa", Conneely brought to these roles a presence and vitality that is still remembered. His Brother in Eamon Kelly's "Religious Knowledge" and his remarkable portrayal of the narrator in MacLiammóir's "The Importance Of Being Oscar" made him one of the best know performer's in the west of Ireland during this period. Then in 1996 he quit the theater and went back to civilian life, as he refers to regular work. But now he's back, and this time he is producing his own plays. His first show, "The Secret Rose", sets the tone for his latest incarnation. Both humorous and cerebral the show traces the evolution of Irishness over the last 200 years through the poetry of the period. "The Road To Clare", an Irish traditional musical comedy, features the discovery of traditional music by the youth of the continent, in Doolin, during the 1970's. This enervating production was performed in the Druid Theater in 2006 and is scheduled to make a return in 2015 "Granuaile And The Pages of History", a large scale mythic take on the 16th century heroine was performed in St Nicholas's Collegiate Church last winter. The show captures the epic sweep of the Elizabethan period as the Renaissance finds its way to the western Isles. The well received "That Same Old Story", a music theater piece on life and love, performed at Johnston's hall in Kinvarra and in the Crane Bar and is expected to return in the autumn. "Day's Of Darkness", performed at An Taibhdhearc in May is a reflection on the troubles and was inspired by Conneely's experience while working in Northern Ireland between 1996 and 2005. "The Year Of The Moving Statues" is a satire on the nation's tendency towards religious hysteria. Set in the fateful year of 1985, the year of the apparitions, the play explores not just religion but our attitude to money, drink, politics, agriculture and wet summers. It is wildly funny and wickedly surreal. To quote the writer "The Year Of The Moving Statues represents the Irish mindset as it might have been painted by Salvador Dali"