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A NEW DOCUMENTARY is hoping to throw light on one of the more curious – and perhaps less well-known – episodes of the Irish War of Independence.
The programme, Am an Ghátair: Deora Dé, is to be screened on TG4 on Wednesday night. It tells the story of Jimmy Walsh, a teenager in Templemore, Co Tipperary, who believed that he saw statues of the Virgin Mary weeping blood in the town in the summer of 1920.
The War of Independence was in full throes, the first shot having been fired in January of 1919 at the south Tipperary village of Soloheadbeg. Walsh’s story, however, drew the focus to its north Tipperary counterpart. Templemore was a dangerous place at that moment, the IRA having killed a Royal Irish Constabulary District Inspector named Wilson, and the RIC now carrying out reprisal attacks on local businesses and homes.
However, reports began to filter through to local and national newspapers of “supernatural manifestations” in the area with particular focus on young Jimmy Walsh who was not only receiving apparitions from the Virgin Mary but apparently had found a ‘holy well’ had appeared in his bedroom floor. A whole host of statues of the Virgin Mary in various places in the town were supposed to be crying tears of blood, including one, ironically enough, in the RIC barracks.
History Ireland cites contemporaneous reports of the ‘visitations’ and the belief locally that they had prevented Templemore from being entirely destroyed by British forces.
Pilgrims began to visit the town in the hope of seeing the visitations and statues and the attention had the effect of halting the battle between the Irish rebels and the British in Templemore, at least for a while. The RIC found itself confined to barracks as the crowds – up to 15,000 people arriving a day – grew in strength and the IRA stopped fighting.
These photographs, supplied by the film-makers Magamedia and the National Photographic Archive, give a taste of the massive crowds drawn to the town:
However, the Catholic Church soon became suspicious of Jimmy Walsh, who by this time had begun carrying out ‘cures’ on pilgrims and had been dubbed locally ‘The Saint’. A local IRA commander, Jimmy Leahy, also had his reservations and took Walsh in for questioning, later citing him as either “mentally abnormal” or a “hypocrite”.
Was Leahy right? Certainly he raised enough doubt for the IRA’s then director of intelligence Michael Collins to order Walsh to be brought to Dublin for further interrogation by Dan Breen, while Collins sat in a back room. Eventually, the IRA decided to restart their war in the Templemore area, killing two RIC men and causing pilgrims to flee for fear of reprisals.
As an interesting postscript to the story, Michael Collins later ordered that one of the ‘bleeding’ statues be brought to Dublin so he could inspect it himself for hidden mechanisms that might explain the alleged miracle. What did he find? We won’t ruin the surprise for you… Am an Ghátair: Deora Dé will be broadcast on TG4 at 9.30pm on Wednesday.
Magamedia have shared this trailer for the doc:
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She got out easy enough but getting back into Trump’s America now might be a little tricker.
@winston smith: won’t be a problem, Trump likes grabbing pussys
@winston smith: President Trump has no problem with people entering USA in the proper legal manner and applying for a Visa.
@Steve Austin: is that why his travel bans have been so successful, bit like his businesses. Can you give me a Hell ya
@winston smith: I’ll take “what are feet for for 400 please”
@Steve Austin: is that why he signed an executive order preventing people who went through the proper channels from entering the US?
@Steve Austin: but people have a problem entering trumps America that’s why tourism is down bigly
I remember that Nat Geo Documentary about the cats and dogs that found their way home?
Homeward Bound I believe it was called.
@Brian Guilfoyle: he whisked it. simple.
There’s a voice that keeps on calling me……
@MARK O ‘LEARY:… until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on
I hope she kept a catalogue of her travels..there is a film in it somewhere.
Cats, like all wool-bearing animals, instinctively travel North, where it’s warmer, and they won’t be so stuffy.
@Harry the Cat: I heard cats originate from a much warmer and dryer climate. North African/ Middle East type climate. They hate the cold and they hate water and the wet. They don’t have a woolly coat just a thin fur. They also get very confused when they see snow, some are scared, some go chasing after falling snow flakes. They’re not at home in the snow at all.
@Jack Bowden: ever heard of the snow leopard or the Siberian tiger?
@Harry the Cat: Canada is a lot colder than California. You got that in reverse mate.
@Robert Cullen: yeah I’m talking about the domesticated short hair cat.
@Harry the Cat: How is it warmer in the north you plum
@Shane, Harry lives in South Africa.
Well that’s about the same amount of time you’d spend waiting to see a gyno in Cork..and whole story about a cat but nothing about the mismanaged services maternity services in Cork.
Nothing about managers and consultants only working Monday to Friday ( because we all know, babies born over the weekend are a nuisance), nothing about their enormous salaries for this 9-5 job? nothing about overworked nurses trying to deal with the huge amount of babies to be born. Nope. Nothing.
@jenni: what the actual f?
@Damocles: Think it’s called reality on this small benighted island…..
@Kerry Blake: it’s a puff piece about a cat. Times and places.
That’s all well and good Jenni but it doesn’t explain how the cat got to Canada.
Ryan Air of course!
I’d hazard a guess she walked or possibly jumped into the back of a pick up truck for warmth
‘Adobted’ by another family that moved to Canada?
Somebody knows.
Ryan Air?
Probably walked
Cats are like that?
have your say