by Neil Sayer, Archdiocesan Archivist

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It was raining. It was Ireland, it’s always raining. But one of the witnesses noticed that the grass at the foot of the apparition was dry. 

There were 15 witnesses to the apparition at Knock, aged from five to 75, and whilst they agreed on the generalities, they all seemed to spot a detail that none of the others had observed. They noticed a bright white light surrounding three figures and recognised two of them as being Our Lady and St Joseph. One villager, Mary Beirne, recognised the third figure as St John the Evangelist, in bishop’s robes just like the statue she knew from another church. One boy, crawling closer to St John, saw writing in the book he carried. Off to one side was an altar, and on it was a lamb and a cross. 

The apparition took place in broad daylight, over two hours on the evening of 21 August 1879 in a village in County Mayo, in the west of Ireland. But it must have been one of the most unconcerned audiences for a miraculous event ever. The first person to see the figures, the priest’s housekeeper, thought that what she saw was statues they’d been expecting to replace some damaged in a storm, and walked past on her way to a neighbour’s house. The teenagers didn’t hang around long. The parish priest of St John the Baptist had had a hard day and was too tired to come and take a look. Folk came and went, drawn away by the news that an old lady was dying in her house in the village. She didn’t, and by the time the people returned, the apparition had gone. If they’d had Minecraft and TikTok, probably no-one would have noticed at all. 

Though nothing was said to the villagers by the figures, and no tidings were imparted, news of the apparitions on the south gable wall of the parish church spread quickly, and a Commission of Enquiry was appointed to interview the witnesses: it reported to the Archbishop of Tuam that their testimony was “trustworthy and satisfactory”. Reports of the apparitions spread and made front-page news in Ireland and England. A number of remarkable cures from various infirmities were soon said to have occurred and Knock gradually became recognised as an important Shrine for devotion to Our Lady. Group pilgrimages to Knock were organised as early as 1880, including some 1,000 Irish emigrants from Manchester in August that year. 

Many of Liverpool’s Catholics had connections with Ireland, and Fr Patrick Murphy at St Anthony’s, Scotland Road, recorded newspaper accounts in his scrapbook. Fr Murphy was one of many Irish priests ministering in our parishes, so it is surprising that it seems to have taken until 1939 before one of them, Fr O’Rourke, led the first pilgrimage from our archdiocese. Fr William O’Rourke was born in Leitrim, less than 40 miles from Knock, so must have grown up with tales of the apparitions nearby. In 1939, he was an assistant priest at Our Lady’s in Eldon Street, and it is thought that as Spiritual Director he led a group of pilgrims mostly from that parish. 

By 1953, it was reported that the Shrine was “attracting organised pilgrimages from distant countries as well as from many parts of Ireland”, and the following year for the first time over a million pilgrims visited. The new church of Our Lady, Queen of Ireland was completed in 1976, and when St John Paul II visited as Pope for the centenary year in 1979, he elevated it to the status of a Basilica. A mosaic crafted from over a million and a half pieces of glass was unveiled as part of the refurbishment of the Basilica in 2016. 

The building of an international airport at Knock is the stuff of legend (and a musical play) and is largely attributed to the drive and vision of one man, Mgr James Horan. As Parish Priest since 1967, he had already overseen the building of the new church and the Papal visit. He overcame resistance to the very idea of an airport on a peat bog, obtained government funding, and then campaigned widely for private donations when the money ran out. 

Construction began in 1981 and the airport opened in 1985. Pope Francis flew into Knock Airport (Ireland West) when he visited the Shrine in August 2018. 
In August 1986, the Catholic Pictorial published an appeal by Mgr Horan for funds to expand the new airport’s facilities, following its official opening on 30 May. In a cruel irony, the very same edition also reported his death on 1 August, on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. 

“One of the few places where the clergy can meet”, he said. Even priests have a day off.