The Knock witnesses are saints, says visionary’s great granddaughter

Knock Shrine is one of those places where you do not need to be very religious to feel that there is a holy presence around. As the story goes, in the late 1870s the figures of Our Lady, St Joseph and St John the Evangelist were seen standing out from the church gable.

“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”, Mary Byrne, considered the chief witness said in her testimony. “The third figure appeared to be that of St John the Evangelist”, she explained, “I saw a statue at the chapel of Lecanvey, near Westport, Co. Mayo, very much resembling the figure which stood now before me”.

The statement also mentioned the apparition of the lamb that today is part of the shrine logo. “Above the altar and resting on it, was a lamb, standing with the face towards St John.”

Experience

Dolores Lee, great grandchild of Mary Byrne told The Irish Catholic that Mary McLoughlin, the priest’s housekeeper “came to visit them in Mary Byrne’s home. She was there about 15-20 minutes and then she said she was going back home.

“They walked over, past the church and Mary Byrne said to Mary McLoughlin. ‘I didn’t know Archdeacon Cavanagh had got new statues’, because there was a bright light around the gable wall, and Ms McLoughlin said ‘I don’t think he did get any statues. I don’t know either, he didn’t tell me’”.

In that moment, Ms Byrne went home, which was just 100 yards from the church and “told her mam Margaret Byrne, her sister Maggie, little niece Catherine Murray, and her brother Dominick Byrne. They all congregated by the gable and they prayed the rosary”, explained Ms Lee.

Ms Lee told this paper, that during the two hours the apparitions were there, over twenty people witnessed it. However, only fifteen gave testimonies, which were deemed credible. Most of the witnesses “didn’t give a witness statement because some people were probably shy, and they didn’t speak English as their first language.”

Ms Lee’s grandmother Mary O’Connell was Mary Byrne’s only daughter. “when we were children, my grandmother, Mary O’Connell lived with us. I’m the eldest of five children. My dad was Mary O’Connell’s son. And we lived with her in our home here near Castlebar.”

“Every time I’m here in Ireland, I go to Knock and I go to pray. All my family on both sides of my relations, they all go to Knock to visit”

According to Ms Lee, they used to go to Knock with her grandmother, to visit Jim O’Connell, who was Mary Byrne’s eldest son, and every time they were in Knock they would go to the church and pray by the apparition gable.

Today, Ms Lee lives  in England, but “every time I’m here in Ireland, I go to Knock and I go to pray. All my family on both sides of my relations, they all go to Knock to visit. One of my cousins, they go once a week, they live in a town called Claremorris.”

The apparition’s stories were not told every day, but the information was carefully passed down the generations. “We accepted it. Really accepted that Grandma O’Connell had seen” the apparitions.

“We visited Knock and we have a very strong faith in our family. I believe that Mary Byrne is an absolute saint. I totally believe it. We all pray to her when we’re in difficulty,” said Ms Lee. “We believe that all of the witnesses are saints because of what they saw in knock.”

“One thing I would like and all my family would like, [is] if the Vatican actually recognised Knock for what it is, like Fatima or Lourdes,” she told this paper. “I read about people that have been to Knock and that they feel that they’ve been cured, it hasn’t actually been recognised fully yet. So that hurts my feelings quite a lot.”

In 2020, Ms Lee had breast cancer and prayed to Mary Byrne. Two years ago, she “went to Knock and I had the blessing of the sick at the 3pm Mass in the basilica. I actually felt that something very spiritual happened to me that day.

“Because of COVID I couldn’t come to Ireland. I had all my treatments, I lost my hair, I had a mastectomy, I had chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and when I went to Knock something happened to me when I had the blessing. I’m not saying I’m cured, but I feel something unreal.”

Connection

Unfortunately, breast cancer is part of the family’s history, as according to Ms Lee, “Mary Byrne also had breast cancer, but she did pass away from it at the age of 86. She had it for two years before she died.”

But cancer was not the only thing to enter the generations in Ms Lee’s family, faith is a big part of the Byrne lineage. “We all have that a strong connection [to Knock] and faith. I mean, I think it’s innate in us, it’s in our DNA. Probably from Mary Byrne, probably from Mary.

“I felt she was sending me a sign that she is a saint”

“In 2022, I read that the feast of Our Lady of Knock was going to be moved to August 17 instead of when she appeared on August 21,” because the Vatican selected August 21 as St Pius X feast. Ms Lee was very disappointed and decided to pray to Mary Byrne.

“I started praying to Granny O’Connell, I call her ‘O’Connell’ because she married O’Connell. I said, ‘Granny, I wish someday you would become a saint.’ And within a few minutes, I took up my phone, I was just flicking through Facebook and a man posted a photograph of Mary Byrne O’Connell with seven of her grandchildren who she lived with in Knock, and the photograph was taken on August 17, 1932 and I was praying to her on the August 17, 1922. So I felt she was sending me a sign that she is a saint. And not just our grandmother, but all of the witnesses.”