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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. 45 the feet, and remarked that the right foot was in advance of the left, like one…
  • p. 47 …the feet and the ankles; one foot, the right, was slightly in advance of the other…
  • p. 71 …hay for sale at the advanced rates now "ruling." But all the travellers we met or…

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

correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, London. The annexed is the written testimony of John P. MacCloskey, penned by himself, to which he signed his name. Young MacCloskey has been remarkable from his childhood for his guileless, honest, and pious course of life. He is now about eighteen years. His testimony is confirmed by the separate attestation of the other two, MacGeoghegan and Conway:—

I, John P. MacCloskey, a native of Claremorris, remember the night of the 9th of February, and the morning of the 10th. Simon Conway, MacGeoghegan, and I left Claremorris at 10 o'clock, P.M. We arrived at Knock sometime after midnight; our desire was to behold the Apparition. After we had arrived, we continued to pray for some time. At about three and a half o'clock on the morning of the 10th of February, while I was praying before the gable of the Knock chapel, I saw a light, like a white silvery cloud, move in a slanting direction over from where the cross stands, on the apex, and overspread the gable. In this bright cloud I saw distinctly the figure and form of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so clearly and fully that I perceived the fleshy colour of the feet. Her dress resembled that made of white satin, and it contained numerous folds. The light had hardly settled on the gable when it began to grow less bright, and to seem to fade or darken in colour, leaving a wreath of its own brightness still around the head of the Blessed Virgin, while the rest of the gable became the colour of white paper stained with pencil strokes. Every now and then a red tongue of flame used to shoot down from the heavens and cross the gable. During the momentary brightness resulting from these flashes, the figure of the Blessed Virgin was each time fully seen. In the absence of such flashes she was seen too, but not so distinctly, only in subdued tones of colour. What attracted my attention to the gable at first was small stars of an emerald

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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.