More Virgins

At this stage we should be used to divine apparitions and moving statues and the like. We have had our fill of them over the years.

But they're off again. This time it's the Unnoticed Virgin of the Blackstairs (above). I'll let the Kilkenny People describe it for you.

Situated just two kilometres outside Graignamanagh near St Mullin’s, rising high above the picturesque Carrigleade golf course are the Blackstairs Mountains. A bizarre formation in the rock, gravel and the heather, with a scale in the hundreds of metres, is striking at a glance – and even more so when gazed upon for longer. It appears to depict the Madonna and Child.

Damn the bit of Virgin I can see, but then I'm an unbeliever and She may be a bit selective in the company She keeps. I'm sure the local Parish Priest, the Bishop, and all the local non-RC denominations will have their hands full making sense of this one. Not to mention Fáilte Ireland in the year of The Gathering.

Unbeliever and all that I may be, that didn't spare me a recent encounter with a Virgin of my own (after a manner of speaking).

I answered the front door recently only to find that the Sumac tree in the front garden had been blown over, and uprooted beyond repair, by the storm of the previous night. The only thing left was to cut it up and burn the logs during the next cold spell.

I may, however, have to draw the line at interfering any further with the trunk of the tree (below). No doubting what you're looking at there.


So, what, I ask myself, is she trying to tell me?

Should I

• stop Knocking Knock? I think I'll await my RIC great-grandfather's report on that apparition before I take it seriously (pace Canon Horan and Pope John Paul II).
• put it up on eBay? But then there is the trade descriptions act and all that sort of legal stuff to contend with.
• burn it? It might be the other lad trying to tempt me, but then again it might not.

or

• just keep trying to improve on my Photoshopping? Yes, that sounds just about right!

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Update 23/8/2013

Well, I thought I should report progress.

The virgin is gone and the tree stump is ageing like the picture of Dorian Gray in Oscar's attic. In fact, I'm beginning to think there is something obscene about it but I can't quite put my finger on it.

The 134th anniversary of Knock has come and gone and the Pope has not restored the silenced to ministry.

So, who knows what next?