2019 years ago, a certain Jesus Christ was born in the Middle East - there were also a significantly larger number of births of less important babies that, frankly, lie outside the purview of this article. This young fellow was, according to a group of people who refer to themselves as 'Christians', the son of god. They maintain that god sent his son - his only son - to be sacrificed as a sign of his love for all humans - broadly, but, more specifically, and in practice, just Christians. This was a pretty ballsy move by any standard, to sort of ethereally impregnate a Middle Eastern woman with a demi-god. Should you have been knocking about around this time and encountered Jesus and his whole situation - at face value - one imagines you'd buy into the whole vibe of things, relatively easily.
Since then however, god has been rather more circumspect in his PR dealings with us - perhaps because we murdered his child using a primitive form of torture. Instead of again sending down any members of his immediate - or even extended family - to whip up some hype for himself, he has become rather more abstruse in the allusions he's apparently proffered to verify his own existence. Now, the closest we'll get to a sign from god is perhaps a vague likeness of Jesus that has accidentally been burnt onto a piece of toast, or, in the case of one antique shop in Kerry, some wood-grain that happens to be somewhat reminiscent of the silhouette of the Virgin Mary.
This is what has made front-page in the local Kerry newspaper, Kerry's Eye. They have made, front and centre of their latest issue, a story about an antique cabinet for sale in a shop called Vintage Vendors which bears a wood-grain pattern that bears a passable resemblance to the Virgin Mary.
— Kerry's Eye (@Kerrys_Eye) October 9, 2019
Word of the cabinet began to get round after a post made on the shop's Facebook page about the cabinet in September gained some attention. As seems entirely fair and reasonable, this attention has caused this cabinet - an inanimate wooden object - to become a point of pilgrimage. Kerry's Eye further mentions in an ensuing Tweet that devotees have started coming to the store to 'rub holy medals against it'. I can only imagine that the point of this is to recharge the medal's holiness levels?
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At an antique shop in Tralee an old cabinet bearing a “striking resemblance” to the Virgin Mary is drawing devotees into the store, blessing themselves and rubbing holy medals against it - as the otherwise ordinary furniture piece becomes a point of pilgrimage for believers. pic.twitter.com/Q6tMFMIVSa
— Kerry's Eye (@Kerrys_Eye) October 9, 2019
This has instantly become the most Irish thing to have ever occurred. It instantly transcends all other supposed pinnacles of Irish cultural expression; shifting someone wearing a GAA jersey behind a shed in Irish college; using about three litres of PVA glue to try mash some grass together into the shape of a St. Brigid's Cross; sectarian violence. They all now fall far behind this - a regional Kerry paper reporting on a holy cabinet that has somehow become a point of pilgrimage.
