Definitely Maybe was released in 1994, just a decade after the Ballinspittle statues moved, and in many ways the Gallaghers reappearance in the headlines is just as prescient as is the anniversary of Ballinspittle’s moving statues, for both are stories of faith and what remains when all else is changed.
For anyone who’d lived through the Oasis breakup and the years of slanging on both sides, the news of a reunion was miraculous indeed.
Perhaps less miraculous for those with an understanding of economics: divorcées cost money, after all.
But still, for some aged music-lovers, the chance to see the boys at Cardiff, Manchester, or better yet, Croke Park, is a cause for heavenly celebration.
Both Ballinspittle and the Gallaghers share biblical beginnings too.
The Gallaghers themselves know the story of Cain and Abel; they’re not stupid, despite pretending to be.
And now that their reunion concerts are upon us, the insane prices and sheer panic of the hunt for tickets back in August is a distant memory.
It does throw up the most significant difference between the Mancunian icons and the Ballinspittle statues though: the money.
Back in 1985, the grotto committee vowed to not let the Balllinspittle experience be commercialised.
There is no doubt but that they kept that promise.
Today the grotto could be as it was in 1985 with the same flowers in bloom and the same sun shining.
There have been huge changes to the infrastructure of the site, sure, but the essence of what brings people there is the same: that connection with the Virgin Mary, be that in the Catholic sense, the Irish sense, or the feminine sense.
We can’t say what kind of a tourism industry Ballinspittle enjoyed before July 22nd 1985, but last Friday, it was markedly quiet in the village.
In one shop, the owner was heard to celebrate the first sale of the day, and it was already past 11am.
The situation was echoed in nearby Timoleague and Courtmacsherry, where both villages had noticeably quiet streets and closed businesses, on a gloriously fine Friday afternoon in July.
In a purely commercial sense, it can be disquieting to see such a quiet summer so far.
However, it’s somewhat soothing that those who visit Ballinspittle are there intentionally and not by accident, nor by incidental tourism.
There is nothing to spend money on in the vicinity of the grotto; you couldn’t if you tried.
Unlike the people of Ballinspittle, Oasis will have sucked their reappearance dry by the time of their next fall-out, and yet again by the time of the next reunion that coincides with the inevitable album.
Those of a neo-liberal taint will say that there is no harm in this hyper commercialisation, because of the rules of supply and demand.
If people will pay three, or even four figures to see Oasis, so what?
The problem is, of course, that the music becomes a religion of the rich and impossibly closed to those who won’t ever see their idols move, in front of them, in the flesh.
The Virgin Mary has a little more class about her than to charge people for the honour of seeing her presence.
You only have to have a little faith, and in any case, whether she moves in reality or not is far besides the point of the experience in itself.
