|Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Knock, Queen of Ireland|
|Location||Knock, County Mayo| |Country||Republic of Ireland|
|Denomination||Roman Catholic Latin Rite| Knock Shrine (Irish:
Cnoc Mhuire) is a Roman Catholic Latin Rite pilgrimage site and
National Shrine in the village of Knock, County Mayo, Ireland,
where it is claimed there was an apparition of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, John the Evangelist and Jesus Christ
(as the Lamb of God) in 1879. As at Lourdes and Fatima the
visitations occurred at a time of immense cultural, social and
economic change, and occurred to people whose traditional
society was under threat from dramatic change. In the 1870s,
Ireland was undergoing a period of dramatic upheaval. Some parts
of the island had experienced what proved to be the last waves
of a famine but which nevertheless brought back memories of the
Great Irish Famine of the late 1840s that had decimated the
countryside. Poverty, unemployment, evictions and emigration
were the order of the day. The appeara