On a rain-soaked evening, villagers in the small parish of Knock saw the figures of Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist appear over the gable of the local chapel, with an altar bearing a lamb and a cross nearby. The figures remained visible for close to two hours while the ground beneath them, unlike everywhere else in the downpour, stayed dry.
No words were spoken. Ireland in 1879 was living through the Land League agitation and still bearing the trauma of the Great Famine, which decades earlier had killed or driven into emigration a quarter of the country's population. As the book reflects, presence itself may have been the message, Mary's silent, faithful arrival saying everything a grieving, impoverished people needed to hear.
More than 300 healings have been reported at the shrine since. The apparition's centenary in 1979 drew Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis visited again in 2018.