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MacPhilpin 1880, Google Books scan of Harvard copy

Internet Archive · 91 pages · text by OCR

This is an 1880 book, The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock, prepared and edited by John MacPhilpin of Tuam and published in Dublin by M. H. Gill and Son. The Internet Archive holds a Google scan of the Harvard College Library copy. It reprints Tuam News accounts and the official depositions of eye-witnesses to the apparition of 21 August 1879 on the sacristy gable of Knock Church, County Mayo. It argues that natural light could not have caused the apparition and lists cures recorded in Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.

  • p. 1 …A public domain book is one that was never to copyright or whose legal copyright term…
  • p. 27 …the church, the reflection from them could never beam on the outside at the foot of…
  • p. 32 …The tenants have never been rich. The wealthiest is only so far above want, that one…
  • p. 38 …Either the Apparition was a reality; or, it never took place; and all the fifteen witnesses…
  • p. 39 …point of fact (if he were deceived), never had occurred. And then you must multiply that…
  • p. 40 …the gables of a house, and they never continue longer than a few moments, like a…
  • p. 41 …It is never even, nor at rest. But in the Apparition there was no rippling, or…
  • p. 51 …It was still bright; I had never heard from Miss M'Loughlin about the vision which…
  • p. 53 …a large globe of golden light; I never saw, I thought, so brilliant a light before…
  • p. 56 …sight to be seen at the chapel such as we never before beheld, and she told
  • p. 58 …came there first I thought I would never leave it. I would not have gone so…
  • p. 60 …bright at the south gable, but it never entered my head that it was necessary to…
  • p. 85 …I never walked on the heel, but simply tipping the ground with the top of my…
No phosphoric or electric action could bring out the distinct brightness in the pupil of the eye, or the minute distinctness in the lettering of the Book of Gospels.

## His Testimony.

I am Patrick Hill; I live in Claremorris; my aunt lives at Knock; I remember the 21st of August last; on that day I was drawing home turf, or peat, from the bog, on an ass. While at my aunt's, at about 8 o'clock in the evening, Dominick Beirne came into the house; he cried out: Come up to the chapel and see the miraculous lights, and the beautiful visions that are to be seen there. I followed him; another man, by name Dominick Beirne, and John Durkan, and a small boy named John Curry, came with me; we were all together; we ran over towards the chapel. When we, running southwest, came so far from the village that on our turning the gable came in view, we immediately beheld the lights, a clear, white light, covering most of the gable, from the ground up to the window and higher. It was a kind of changing bright light, going sometimes up high and again not so high. We saw the figures—the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and St. John, and an altar, with the Lamb on the altar, and a cross behind the Lamb. At this time we reached as far as the wall fronting the gable; there were other people there before me; some of them were praying, some not; all were looking at the vision; they were leaning over the wall or ditch, with their arms resting on the top. I saw the figures and brightness; the boy, John Curry, from behind the wall, could not see them; but I did; and he asked me to lift him up till he could see the grand babies, as he called the figures; it was raining; some—amongst them Mary M'Loughlin—who beheld what I now saw, had gone away; others were coming. After we prayed awhile I thought it right to go across the wall

About this file

Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. The text was read from the page images by an OCR model; expect the odd misread word. 91 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.