The Virgin Mary is about to do a gig. Hurrah for performance art. At this time of national stress, we need a bit of culture and life about the place. This gig has it all — music, magic, location, location and location. Grottos are to be found in some of the most beautiful parts of the country — I particularly like Valentia, a great big weeping watery cave of a place, though Gray Square in the Liberties also does it for me.

Not many people know this, but Our Lady speaks in an English accent and is physically beautiful. So says Joe Coleman, the visionary from Ballyfermot who was talking to Joe Duffy on RTE’s Liveline. He has been to heaven and back, Joe C told Joe D, because the doctor gave him too much anaesthetic. Here, the national station let itself down: Duffy did not ask what heaven is like.

Coleman had apparently seen his late father there and his young son. Thousands of years have passed since the birth of Christ, we finally find someone who’s been to heaven and Duffy did not seize the moment. What’s it like up there? Are there beds for the dead, or the usual trolleys? Are they flying without wings?

Instead, Duffy wanted to know how much the visionary charged — a real sign of the times. RTE knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. No wonder Our Lady is moved. I was raging myself.

For the elucidation of younger readers, the last time the Holy Virgin did the shimmy-shimmy shake was 1985. Then, thousands gathered at shrines around the country and the craic was heavenly. The Irish Times plotted her movements and maps were produced. Peace enveloped the land — after the civil war that had broken out over abortion referendum campaigns.

Signs of similar groundbreaking phenomena are about the place again. Out at Portmarnock golf club, which has won a landmark ruling in the Irish Supreme Court allowing it to continue to prevent women from applying for membership, persons claiming to be male are walking about in silence. They have been cautioned not to talk to the media, thus raising the question — how do we even know they are male?

Why these men do not want women about the place, I cannot imagine, but I have put two and two together and come up with this theory: you can book bed, breakfast, massage and beauty therapy in Portmarnock (all rooms with a sea view) and no less a man than Ben Dunne has just come out to say that he is proud to be a member of the club. The club provides moisturisers, chocolate-ice pedicure and such for real men — though it’s anybody’s guess how real they are.

Dunne, as he acknowledged a long time ago, likes the full 18 holes when he goes to places like Florida for rest and recreation. Golf hardly comes into it, here or there. As Justice Adrian Hardiman observed in his ruling, men are only entitled to embrace basic needs such as air, food and water.

What else and who else are they embracing out there? We have a right to know.

The strict dress code may give a clue: “no vest-type T-shirts are allowed, socks must be white, short and ankle length, and baseball caps with visors are prohibited”. So Marlon Brando types need not apply. These guys prefer to shout “fore” than “Stella”.

The Virgin Mary’s threat to go walkies in response to this nonsense has already caused grown men to tremble and promise reform. David McWilliams issued an abject apology for boasting that he survived an interview with Miriam O’Callaghan with his clothes on and his “balls” intact.

Is he now out there in Portmarnock, in the bushes, seeking spare ones? Perhaps he hopes to have a vision, given that his financial one has been rejected by Brian Lenihan. David needs urgently to learn how to talk to women, and the Virgin Mary, according to Holy Joe, will be gentle with him. She was, is, and will remain immaculate.

Last time round, hundreds of thousands turned out to welcome Mary. This time, enthusiasm isn’t quite what it was. Thousands have also failed to respond to the trade union call to take to the streets. There is no hope that we will get a pay rise, a job, or a golden handshake.

We should remember the Marxist definition that “religion is the sigh of an oppressed creature; the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions; the opium of the people”. That sounds prophetically like the forthcoming budget, the government, the opposition, the trades unions, and the all-male four-balls in Portmarnock.

Marx said something more, that “the demand for the abolition of religion is a demand for real happiness”. That demand will gather pace when the next instalment of the sexual abuse of children by priests is published. I rest my case, your Holinesses, your Excellencies, your male memberships. They can kill religion but not the imagination. The Lady is not for turning.

We will have circuses and they will be wondrous.

Times are not ripe for demonstrations; but that is just because we need to change their nature. There was a time — it happened in 1981 at the feminist invasion of the all-male swimming hole known as the Forty Foot — when the Portmarnock ruling would have led to an invasion by land, sea and air. (I jumped off the rock, using an umbrella). Where are the young sisters, now that we need them?

Justice Hardiman has given us a clue: the right to air, food and water. Portmarnock, standing like a siren, beckons us. I’ve come over all faint thinking of it and need to take a walk. And if I do, and several golf balls fall out of my pockets as I come near the holes, what are they going to do? Is that a gun in your pocket, boys, and are you calling me Stella?

Not good enough. Our Lady, in her majesty, demands a more artistic response. So this is what we’ll do: order helium balloons in the image of Holy Mary. We’ll tie them to our wrists and walk along the shore at Portmarnock. Think Renoir and Les Parapluies. Then we’ll release the ladies. The skies will be filled with the flying, celestial sight. The women are back in town, boys.

Such fun. Such larks. Such performance art. Mary is due to appear at Knock on December 5, three days before the feast of the Immaculate Conception. (Coincidentally the 8th is also the 43rd birthday of Reverend Mother Sinead O’Connor.) I feel a demo coming on. Portmarnock’s days are numbered.

Justine McCarthy is away

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