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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.

to them miracles are shams, or they are put by them in the category of spirit-rapping and of jugglery. But Christians know that there is a spirit-world, happy souls and angels, that there is a God who guides and directs everything, who seeks the love and devotion, as well as the happiness of his intelligent creatures—all mankind. We are the principal object of the care and loving attention of God, and for our sakes, and to excite our faith and love, He performs miracles. His children regard them—miracles—as the seal and language of God speaking to the heart of man. Is there a miracle there? Then, if so, it is God's voice, at least to those who believe in Him: it is a light from heaven, and the pure-eyed soul sees that light and believes it as the expression of God to him. But all do not believe in miracles with equal readiness. Christ performed them, and the Pharisees attributed their performance to the power of the prince of devils. Moses performed them, and Pharaoh resisted him the more determinedly. It is so to-day. It does not follow that if some people believe not in miracles that they have not really been performed.

The question now is, Has any real miracle been performed at Knock?

We answer that in our opinion there have been many. A great many cures will, or perhaps can be traced to nervous excitement, and to the desire for improvement; but making all due allowances for physical agencies and natural causes, still over one-third of those recorded will, it is likely, be considered, in the opinion of honest men, miraculous.

The diary which is kept by Archdeacon Cavanagh contains a record of nigh three hundred; ten select miracles out of this number would plainly prove the miraculous character of the Apparitions witnessed on the several occasions recorded in the pages of the Very Rev. Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.

About this file

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.