The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock, also known as Knock Shrine, is a Roman Catholic place of worship and a national shrine located in the village of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland. In 1879, people in the area reported seeing an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist, angels, and Jesus Christ (referred to as the Lamb of God).
Apparition
On the evening of Thursday, August 21, 1879, it was very rainy. Around 8 o’clock, Mary Byrne, a girl from the village, was walking home with the priest’s housekeeper, Mary McLoughlin. Mary stopped suddenly when she saw the gable of the church. She said she saw three large figures. She ran home to tell her parents, and soon others from the village arrived. Witnesses claimed they saw an apparition of Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and Saint John the Evangelist at the south gable of the Church of Saint John the Baptist. Behind them, slightly to the left of Saint John, was a plain altar. On the altar was a cross and a lamb, with angels nearby. A farmer about half a mile away later described seeing a large, golden, round light above and around the gable. For nearly two hours, a group of people—ranging from two to as many as twenty-five—stood or knelt, looking at the figures. It was raining. The witnesses included Mary Byrne (also known as Margaret Beirne), aged 29, her mother Margaret Beirne, aged 68, her younger sister Margaret Beirne, her younger brother Dominick Beirne, her eight-year-old niece Catherine Murray, Dominick Beirne’s five-year-old nephew John Curry, and Patrick Beirne, who may have been a relative. An 11-year-old boy named Patrick Hill is believed to have given the most detailed description of the vision.
For believing Catholics, the apparitions were considered important in relation to the end times. Scholars who study Catholic beliefs, such as Emmett O’Reagan, have worked to understand the message from the event.
The vision of Mary was described as beautiful, standing a few feet above the ground. She wore a white cloak that hung in full folds and was fastened at the neck. She was described as “deep in prayer,” with her eyes raised to heaven and her hands raised to the shoulders or slightly higher, with her palms facing the shoulders.
Saint Joseph was described as wearing white robes and standing to the right of the Virgin Mary. His head was bent forward toward her. Saint John the Evangelist stood to the left of the Virgin Mary. He wore a long robe and a mitre. He was partly turned away from the other figures. Some witnesses said Saint John appeared to be preaching and held a large open book in his left hand. Others did not see this. To the left of Saint John, some said there was an altar with a lamb on it, with a cross behind the lamb.
Those who saw the apparition stood in the rain for up to two hours, reciting the Rosary. When the apparition began, there was good light, but it later became dark. Witnesses said they could still see the figures clearly. They reported that the apparitions did not flicker or move. Witnesses also said the ground around the figures remained completely dry during the event, even though the wind was blowing from the south.
Soon after the event, the entire wall where the apparition was seen was destroyed by pilgrims who took pieces of the cement, mortar, and stones as souvenirs or for supposed cures.
An official religious commission was formed by Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam on October 8, 1879. The commission included Canon Ulick Bourke, Canon James Waldron, the parish priest of Ballyhaunis, and Archdeacon Bartholomew Aloysius Cavanagh. Witnesses gave their statements in the following months. The commission only discussed the event of August 21, 1879, and did not mention any events that happened afterward. No official records exist for events after that date.
The commission found the witnesses’ accounts to be trustworthy. They considered whether the apparition could have been caused by natural events or if there was any fraud. It was reported that no natural explanation could be found, and no one suggested fraud. The commission concluded that the witnesses’ testimony was reliable.
Most documents from the early years of the Knock event were lost, so a second commission was formed in 1936. This commission relied on interviews with surviving witnesses (who confirmed their earlier statements), their children, press reports, and religious writings from the 1880s. Surviving witnesses confirmed their earlier accounts.
The growth of railways and the rise of local and national newspapers increased interest in the small village of Knock. Stories about “strange events in an Irish village” were quickly reported in international media, including The Times in London. Newspapers as far away as Chicago sent reporters to cover the event. Canon Ulick Bourke, along with Timothy Daniel Sullivan and Margaret Anna Cusack, helped turn Knock into a major Marian pilgrimage site. Pilgrimages at Knock combined traditional Irish practices, such as walking around the church and holding all-night vigils, with devotions like the Stations of the Cross, benediction, processions, and the recitation of litanies. Priests connected to the Fenian movement often led these pilgrimages.
John White linked the silence of the apparition to a cultural change at the time. He noted that Canon Cavanagh had to preach in both English and Irish because schools were replacing Irish with English as the language of young people. This shift in language may be connected to the silence of the visions, as the oldest witness, Bridget Trench, did not speak English, while the youngest witness, six-year-old John Curry, was being taught without Irish.
According to Joe Nickell, there are serious differences in the witnesses’ accounts, and natural phenomena may explain the apparition. An astronomer used a computer to recreate the sky from that time and found the sun was above the horizon during the event. A school near the site had a wall angled toward the church’s south gable. It is suggested that sunlight reflected off the school’s windows (which may have existed) created a “natural version of a magic-lantern effect.” Nickell explains that unusual shapes from reflected light could cause people to see things they thought were miraculous, especially if they were looking for something holy. Investigator Melvin Harris proposed that a priest might have used a mirror to reflect a magic-lantern projection onto the wall from the upper window of the chapel, rather than from outside.
Modern era
People who say they were healed at Knock often leave crutches and sticks at the place where the apparition is believed to have happened. Each Irish diocese visits the Marian Shrine every year, and the nine-day Knock novena draws many pilgrims in August. The miracle is also called "Our Lady of Knock" by the church.
The site includes five churches, such as the Apparition Chapel, Parish Church, and Basilica, along with a Religious Books' Centre, Caravan and Camping Park, Knock Museum, Café le Chéile, and Knock House Hotel. Services at the Shrine include planned pilgrimages, daily Masses and Confessions, Anointing of the Sick, Counseling Service, Prayer Guidance, and Youth Ministry. The original church remains standing, and a new Apparition Chapel with statues of Our Lady, St Joseph, the Lamb, and St John the Evangelist has been built nearby. Knock Basilica is a separate building that displays a tapestry showing the apparition.
Recent history
Mother Teresa of Calcutta visited the Shrine in June 1993.
Ireland's National Eucharistic Congress took place at the Marian Shrine in Knock on June 25 and 26, 2011. Approximately 13,000 pilgrims attended the event.
Knock remained a major pilgrimage site in Ireland for nearly 100 years. It became a well-known religious site worldwide during the last part of the twentieth century, largely because of the efforts of Monsignor James Horan, the shrine's longtime parish priest. Horan led a major rebuilding project at the site, including the construction of a new large Knock Basilica (the second in Ireland) next to the old church. He also obtained millions of pounds in government funding from the Taoiseach (prime minister) Charles Haughey to build an airport 19 kilometers away, near Charlestown.
On May 13, 2017, Cardinal Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan held a requiem mass at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral cemetery in Lower Manhattan. The ceremony honored John Curry, the youngest person who witnessed the Knock apparition. Curry had been reburied there after being moved from an unmarked grave on Long Island.
Parish priest
The parish priest during the apparition was Rev. Bartholomew Aloysius Cavanagh, who also served as Archdeacon in the diocese. He became the parish priest of Knock-Aghamore in 1867 and was around 58 years old at the time of the apparition. He passed away in 1897 and is buried in the Old Church.