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The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock; also, the Official Depositions of the Eye-witnesses

M.H. Gill & Son (1880), via Internet Archive · 1880 · 90 pages · text from the file's own layer

This book was prepared and edited by John MacPhilpin of Tuam and published in Dublin by M. H. Gill & Son in 1880. It reprints Tuam News reports on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist, which about twenty people saw on the south gable of Knock chapel, County Mayo, on 21 August 1879. It also gives the witnesses' official depositions, which a commission of priests appointed by the Archbishop of Tuam judged trustworthy. It lists cures recorded in Archdeacon Cavanagh's diary.

  • p. 46 …I noticed his whiskers ; they ap peared slightly gray ; there was aline or dark mearing between
  • p. 51 …represented the saint as somewhat aged, with gray whiskers and grayish hair. The third figure appeared…
  • p. 60 …Joseph were an iron gray ; the Blessed Virgin had on a white cloak. The reason I…
36
came to his recollection that I had told him the previous
evening about it, and asked him to see it.
Note.—Mary M'Loughlin had gone away before Patrick Hill came. Their
testimony relates to two distinct and separate times while the Apparition
was present. She saw it, like one who did not care to see it, and in a
transverse direction, not straight ; he saw it directly and fully, and like a
confiding child, went up calmly to where the Blessed Virgin stood.
Third Witness.
Testimony of Mary Beirne, aged about 26 years.
I live in the village of Knock, to the east side of the chapel ;
Mary M'Loughlin came on the evening of the 21st of August
to my house at about half-past seven o'clock ; she remained
some little time ; I came back with her as she was returning
homewards ; it was either eight o'clock or a quarter to eight
at the time. It was still bright ; I had never heard from Miss
M'Loughlin about the vision which she had seen just before
that. The first I learned of it was on coming at the time just
named from my mother's house in company with Miss Mary
M'Loughlin, and at the distance of three hundred yards or so
from the church, I beheld, all at once, standing out from the
gable, and rather to the west of it, three figures which, on
more attentive inspection, appeared to be that of the Blessed
Virgin, of St. Joseph, and St. John. That of the Blessed
Virgin was life-size, the others apparently either not so big
or not so high as her figure ; they stood a little distance out
from the gable wall, and, as well as I could judge, a foot and
a half or two feet from the ground. The Virgin stood erect,
with eyes raised to heaven, her hands elevated to the shoulders
or a little higher, the palms inclined slightly towards the
shoulders or bosom ; she wore a large cloak of a white colour,
hanging in full folds and somewhat loosely aroundhershoulders,

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Document, cited by the archive. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 90 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.