Case file · Apparition / miracle
Knock apparition
On a wet evening, 21 August 1879, villagers in Knock, County Mayo, said they saw Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John and a lamb on an altar at the church's south gable.
1879 CE · 53.79, -8.92 · status: account
The account
Mary Byrne saw the figures first and others from the village soon gathered. A Church commission found the evidence trustworthy. Knock is now Ireland's national Marian shrine.
The sceptical view
Only witness statements survive, and the commission recorded the first night alone, leaving later claimed phenomena undocumented; there is no physical evidence to test.
Connections in the atlas
- Zeitoun apparition
- ▶ When the Virgin appeared
- Our Lady of Lourdes