Knock

Village and parish in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland, 11 km/7 mi northeast of Claremorris; the village has a small population (1,400 in 2002) but as an international place of pilgrimage receives a reputed 1.5 million visitors per year. Knock is known as the site of alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary (the first on 21 August 1879), and for its church shrine, the Basilica of Our Lady, ‘Queen of Ireland’, which seats 12,000 and was opened in 1976. Horan International Airport, opened in 1986, receives transatlantic flights; it was named after Monsignor James Horan, a parish priest who launched the project to attract pilgrims.

In the first alleged apparition the Virgin Mary, St Joseph, and St John initially appeared to two women in 1879. A church commission investigated the witnesses and accepted their account; a second commission ratified this in 1936. Although the Catholic Church has made no official statement, interest in the shrine has been great, and pilgrims arrive each year from Ireland and around the world. In 1979 Pope John Paul II, the first pope to set foot on Irish soil, celebrated mass here for the sick on the centenary of the first apparition. There is a folk museum on the site.