New Hibernia Review

in a previous edition of this journal, I examined the apparition alleged to have occurred on the night of August 21, 1879, in the remote County Mayo village of Knock.¹ Unlike other nineteenth-century Marian apparitions, at Knock the Virgin did not appear alone. Facing inward toward Mary's right was her husband, St. Joseph. Much like his portrayal in devotional artwork, Joseph was observed to have been bearded and wearing long robes. On Mary's left was St. John the Evangelist, who was dressed as a bishop and holding a book of gospels in his left hand. Curiously, although nearly all the witnesses testified to seeing the Virgin Mary, their accounts varied on certain details. Some witnesses claimed to have seen an altar upon which stood a lamb in front of a cross. Others mentioned that they saw either some or none of these liturgical symbols.²

Considering the profound spatial/sensory experiences described by the witnesses, coupled with their use of photographic-like references when relating what they had seen, I suggested that the contention about a magic lantern being present at Knock was essentially true.³ However, my article contended that [End Page 91]

[End Page 92] while a lantern was involved in how the witnesses perceived the vision, it was not part of the elaborate hoax sceptics have labeled it as. Rather, this technological intervention, probably associated with the scientific examinations carried out by Father Francis Lennon for the First Commission of Enquiry, occurred after the appearance of some unexplained light phenomenon that was seen by at least some of the witnesses.⁴ Building on Walter Benjamin's ponderings on mimesis, I suggested that, through a process where technology was used to copy the original event, the witnesses' memory of this strange light spectacle and their encounter with the lantern's mesmerizing projections merged into one.⁵ Mimicry, I argued, and the ways the mind beholds the representation of the uncanny was at the heart of how the apparition was imagined.⁶

One matter my earlier article only briefly touched on was how the apparition acquired its enigmatic visual references. The combination of figures, symbols, and personages that comprised the vision is at odds with the representation of other nineteenth-century Marian apparition events.⁷ Even theologians have been hard-pressed to explain the meaning behind Knock's unorthodox hagiographic configuration. To better understand the circumstances through which the vision attained its visual elements, this article will examine the intriguing resemblance between the apparition and the heraldic arms of the Archdiocese of Tuam. Their similarities, which were noted by one prominent Knock devotional writer, point toward a synergic connection linking the two together. To this end, I suggest that, to frame the apparition liturgically, clergy used references to the Tuam arms to prompt the witnesses when they were making their statements to the First Commission of Enquiry, which is presumed to have met on October 8, 1879. Although the evidence supporting this conjecture is not conclusive, a scarcely studied testimony offered by the youngest witness, John Curry, many years after the apparition, is enlightening. When read in [End Page 93] comparison with the Tuam arms, Curry's account suggests that the witnesses had indeed seen this design.