Knock Shrine

On a wet evening in August 1879, fifteen people from the village of Knock said they saw figures - Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist, with a lamb on an altar - against the gable wall of the parish church, in silence, for around two hours. Two church commissions, in 1879 and 1936, found the witnesses credible. The site became a pilgrimage destination, drawing around a million and a half visitors a year, with a basilica seating ten thousand built in 1976 and the original gable enclosed in an apparition chapel. John Paul II came in 1979 for the centenary and Francis in 2018. An airport was built nearby in the 1980s on Monsignor James Horan's initiative, against considerable ridicule at the time, and it now serves the region. There is a museum on the shrine's history and the social history of the west. It is a working religious site, busiest around the August anniversary.

The main sights

• The apparition gable - the original wall, enclosed in its chapel.
• The basilica - seating ten thousand, built for the pilgrimage numbers.
• The museum - the shrine's history and the nineteenth-century west of Ireland.
• The scale - around a million and a half visitors a year.

When to go

The pilgrimage season runs May to October, with the anniversary in mid-August the busiest period. The grounds are open year-round. Ceremonies run to a daily schedule.

What to expect

An active religious site, not a heritage attraction - visitors are among people praying. Very crowded on ceremony days and around the August anniversary. The modern buildings are large and functional rather than beautiful.

Nearby

Ireland West Airport is a few kilometres north; Ballintubber Abbey and Castlebar are west.