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MacPhilpin 1880, Google Books scan of Harvard copy

Internet Archive · 91 pages · text by GLM-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. 14 …WHAT THE EYE-WITNESSES SAY—Testimonies of Patrick Hill, Mary M'Loughlin, Mary Beirne, Patrick Walsh…
  • p. 20 …In Gaelic, the name "Knock" signifies a hill. The village is surrounded by elevated knolls, which…
  • p. 21 …Looking, for instance, to the south-west, he beholds Cnoc-ban, or fair hill; and to…
  • p. 22 …A second Lourdes has arisen at Knock, a small village surrounded by little hills, from which…
  • p. 34 …but ancient-looking, buildings erected on the hill. He naturally asks: What is that? The site…
  • p. 41 …balls of the figures, which, as Patrick Hill testifies, appeared to him to be those of…
  • p. 44 …rightly due to the evidence of Patrick Hill, of Claremorris, a young, frank, intelligent boy, of…
  • p. 45 …Master Hill declares that they appeared to him to move, and, as it were, on wing…
  • p. 46 …I am Patrick Hill; I live in Claremorris; my aunt lives at Knock; I remember the…
  • p. 49 …myself; I went away then. (Signed) PATRICK HILL. Witness present—U. J. Canon Bourke. October 8th…
  • p. 51 …NOTE.—Mary M'Loughlin had gone away before Patrick Hill came. Their testimony relates to two…
  • p. 61 …The fifteenth witness is John Durkan, one of the three who accompanied young Hill. His testimony…
  • p. 65 …looked around the church and school, and hill and vale, mound and mearing, and saw no…
  • p. 70 …This was a boy of about fourteen years of age, named Patrick Hill—a bright, intelligent…
  • p. 71 this story in the manner already described, Hill departed, and presently a lad was brought in…

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

us all to come and see it; I asked her what it was, and she said that the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and St. John were to be seen there. I went out immediately and came to the spot indicated. When I arrived there I saw distinctly the three figures. I threw myself on my knees and exclaimed: "A hundred thousand thanks to God and to the glorious Virgin that has given us this manifestation." I went in immediately to kiss, as I thought, the feet of the Blessed Virgin; but I felt nothing in the embrace but the wall, and I wondered why I could not feel with my hands the figures which I had so plainly and so distinctly seen. The three figures appeared motionless, statue-like; they were standing by the gable of the church in the background, and seemed raised about two feet above the ground. The Blessed Virgin was in the centre; she was clothed in white, and covered with what appeared one white garment; her hands were raised to the same position as that in which a priest holds his hands when praying at holy Mass. I remarked distinctly the lower portions of her feet, and kissed them three times; she had on her head something resembling a crown, and her eyes were turned up heavenwards. I was so taken with the Blessed Virgin, that I did not pay much attention to any other; yet I saw also the two other figures—St. Joseph standing to the right of the Blessed Virgin, or to the left, as I looked at him, his head bent towards her and his hands joined; and the other figure, which I took to be St. John the Evangelist, was standing at her left. I heard those around me say that the image was St. John. It was raining very heavily at the time, but no rain fell where the figures were. I felt the ground carefully with my hands, and it was perfectly dry. The wind was blowing from the south, right against the gable of the chapel, but no rain fell on that portion of the gable or chapel in which the figures were. There was no movement or active

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