In the sodden summer of 1985, the Irish public were diverted by the extraordinary tales that began to emerge around the country about statues that were, according to many accounts, moving.

Both the international media and the public were agog. Moving statue jokes were being coined by the hour. In September that year, one Sunday newspaper even published a map of Ireland, showing the 28 locations where movements had been sighted. The one most people remember is the Co Cork village of Ballinspittle. Catherine O'Mahony was one of a small group of people who was out walking one evening in late July of 1985. So what happened at the shrine, which was erected in 1954 for the Marian Year, on that damp, cool evening?

"It was after the nine o'clock news was over that we set out for a walk to the grotto. The grotto is about a mile from the house. It was ourselves and the Divillys went out that evening," she remembers. "A lot of grottos in Ireland are in the centre of towns and village, they're very public places. But at Ballinspittle, it's well outside the village. You can't see any houses around. It's so peaceful there - and so homely."

At the grotto, they said the rosary, as was their regular custom. "When we had it said, the children said they had seen the statue moving," she reports. "At that time, there was talk of statues moving around the country, and there was nobody believing anyone, and then, when it happens to yourself, you think, the others must have been telling the truth too. You don't believe these things until it happens to you.

"We all stood there then together, and after a while, the next person saw it moving and after a while then, we all saw it." What did she see? "As if she were breathing. It's hard to explain. The others saw her shimmering; to me it looked as if it was breathing. Once you went close up to it, you couldn't see anything, but when you went back five or six feet, you could see it again."

She concedes now that seeing the statue moving strengthened her faith, although she has no suggestions as to why it moved, or what it might have meant. Does she think it was a spiritual or a supernatural event? "Well, I can't say I've never seen any spirits or anything like that. I would believe that they're there, and that they're near us. I suppose the two things are kind of the same."

Once home that night in 1985, the word spread about what had happened at the grotto. The following evening, when O'Mahony returned to the grotto, the place was packed. "Some of them were really white in the face with the fright they were after getting when they saw the statue moving."

It was, however, six weeks before O'Mahony herself saw the statue move again. By then, the village had been inundated by pilgrims, tourists, TV crews, journalists, scientists, and sundry others who turned up for the craic. The Ballinspittle statue was an international phenomenon, with US, British, and Australian media broadcasting and printing the story.

She admits that it changed Ballinspittle, put it on the map. "There are definitely more people passing through Ballinspittle these days, even years later. When you go there now, you'll never be at the grotto on your own for long, there's always either somebody there before you, or cars driving by and stopping."

It changed O'Mahony's own life in small, significant ways. She has seen the statue moving "several times" since that first time, the most recent occasion was August of this year. "The statue gave me more to do," she says, half-jokingly. She is a member of the Grotto Committee, which helps to maintain the statue and the area around it. She still gets letters from people, asking her to pray for them at the grotto. "They send me rosary beads; I wish they wouldn't do that," she grumbles. "Where am I to put them? If they all went on the grotto railings, you wouldn't be able to see the place now."

A far thornier issue is the one between the phenomenon of the Ballinspittle statue and the local clergy. They have always ducked their heads and looked the other way. When The Irish Times phoned the current local priest for some comment on Ballinspittle's most famous resident, it became evident media shyness still endures.

"They're bound, like, they can't say anything," O'Mahony points out. Later, she adds: "Anything that brings people to prayer, I think is a good thing."