Our Lady of Knock/
May Altar
In Ireland people go on pilgrimage to Knock shrine to honour Our Lady. In 1879 Knock was an obscure
wayside village in County Mayo, in the West of Ireland. Famine, evictions and religious persecutions
characterised the lives of the people at that time, many of whom were very poor and uneducated.
The 21st August 1879 was a normal summer's day in County Mayo. The people were working in the
fields and on the bogs, saving hay and bringing home the turf. In the morning the sun shone brightly.
By mid-day a drizzle was falling and by evening this had turned to a steady downpour. The parish priest
got soaking wet while visiting a distant part of the parish. He sat by the turf fire drying his clothes.
Across the road from Knock Church, an old woman, Mrs Campbell, was ill in her cottage and was not
expected to live long. In another cottage nearby lived the Beirne family. Mrs Beirne and her daughter
Mary had just returned from a holiday on the west coast of Mayo.
It was shortly after seven o'clock in the evening when an unusual brightness was noticed on the side of
the church for the first time. Then a woman thought she saw figures in the light but assumed that they
were new statues for the church and didn't take any further interest in them. The first person to pass the
church who decided that what she saw were not statues was Mary Beirne. "They're not statues," she said,
"they're moving. It's the Blessed Virgin."
Mary rushed home to call her family. Her brother Dominic, who was twenty at the time, told her not to
be making a show of herself in front of the neighbours. "Well, come and see for yourself," Mary replied.
Dominic, his mother and her eight-year-old granddaughter followed Mary to the church. They found
that what she had said was true. Others gathered and altogether fifteen people saw the scene by the
gable of the church. They saw the Blessed Virgin Mary standing about two feet above ground level,
clothed in white robes which were fastened at the neck. She had a golden crown on her head, with a
rose over her forehead. On one side of Our Lady stood St Joseph and on the other side stood St John the
evangelist who held a book of the Gospels in his hand. None of the figures spoke. Behind them there
was an altar and on the altar was a lamb and a large cross, and hovering around there were angels. The
figures moved forwards and backwards. During the apparition darkness fell but all the time the figures
were surrounded with an unusual light. All the time heavy rain poured down but the figures did not get
wet and when Bridget Trench, one of the witnesses, felt the ground underneath the figures it was
perfectly dry.
Seven weeks later the archbishop of Tuam set up a special Church commission to enquire into the
happening. Fifteen witnesses appeared before the commission and the final verdict was that the
testimony of all was "trustworthy and satisfactory". Today Knock is one of the recognised Marian
Shrines. In 1974 the foundation stone for the new church at Knock was blessed by the Archbishop of
Tuam and the church, dedicated to Our Lady, Queen of Ireland, was blessed on 8 July 1976. This held
fifteen thousand people and is specially designed to provide shelter for invalids from the rain or from
the sun. Around the church is an ambulatory with thirty-two pillars. Each of the thirty-two counties of
Ireland has provided stone for one of the pillars. Thousands of people come each year to visit Knock
shrii)e and to honour Mary, the mother of Jesus.
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