Photo of Knock Shrine in County Mayo taken by Denise Foley
On a rainy August night in 1879, a five-year-old boy named John Curry witnessed one of the most significant events in Irish Catholic history while sitting on the shoulders of his 11-year-old cousin.
There, on the south gable of the Church of St, John the Baptist in Knock, County Mayo, Ireland, little John and more than a dozen other local residents saw an apparition of Our Lady, her head bent deep in prayer; Saint Joseph, leaning toward her; and St. John the Evangelist, a mitre on his head and a large book in his left hand. To the left of St. John was a plain altar with a Cross, a lamb, and angels. A farmer a mile away reported seeing a globe of golden light around the gable.
The witnesses spent two hours in front of the apparition, praying the rosary.
The apparition of Mary is now recognised by the Catholic Church as “Our Lady of Knock,” and memorialised as “Golden Rose, Queen of Ireland” in a hymn sung at many Irish events wherever Irish Catholics gather, including in Philadelphia. She is also remembered with a shrine, erected by the Mayo Association of Philadelphia in the dining room at the Commodore Barry Arts and Cultural Center (The Irish Center) in Mt. Airy, and now at the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal on Chelten Avenue in Germantown.
At the Miraculous Medal Shrine, a statue of Our Lady of Knock forms the centerpiece of the nearly completed outdoor Rosary Walk. It was erected to acknowledge the contributions of Irish Americans to Germantown and other city neighborhoods. Next to the statue is a steel box that contains pieces of the wall at the shrine in Knock, so a little bit of Ireland’s own Mary is there.
The Mayo Association, along with other Irish groups in the region, contributed to the creation of the local shrine, says Association President Cathleen Lynskey. It seemed so appropriate to have Our Lady of Knock at the Miraculous Medal Shrine. “When my mother and father came here from Ireland in the late ‘40s, this was the place they came to. It brought them such peace,” says Lynskey. “Today, it’s still an immigrant neighborhood it’s just that the immigrants look different. But it’s still a place of peace and prayer and a beacon of hope.”
The pandemic was tough on most organizations and Mayo wasn’t spared. An historically devout and fun-loving group—yes, those things do go together—there weren’t as able to spend as much time together as they wanted. So, former Mayo President Maureen Callahan came up with an idea for a trip that would make up for “all the things we couldn’t do.”
She had learned that little John Curry—the youngest of the Knock witnesses—had emigrated to the United States, became ill and indigent, and found a home with the Little Sisters of the Poor in Farmingdale, Long Island. “That was his journey,” marvels Callahan. “He saw this apparition and ended up destitute in the United States with no family.”
Curry died in 1943 and was buried in the cemetery next to the Little Sisters’ Home, though since then the home has been closed. But in 2015, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York, on a visit to Knock learned that Curry was buried in an unmarked grave on Long Island and he decided to remedy that.
In 2017, the body of John Curry was reburied—after a Mass said by the Cardinal—at the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral Cemetery in Lower Manhattan. His headstone describes him as “witness to the apparition at Knock, 21st August, 1879.”
“I had a cousin come over from Mayo and we went to see the church,” says Callahan. “It’s a small, intimate church, not like the big St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Street. It’s also beautiful but in a quieter way, in an old immigrant neighborhood.”
So she started planning a trip to visit Curry’s grave which will take place on Saturday, September 30. A luxury motor coach will leave from the Irish Center and head directly to St, Patrick’s Old Cathedral where the travellers will have a guided tour of the church and visit Curry’s grave.
After the St. Patrick’s visit, there will be a private tour of the New York Irish Memorial and other Irish sites in Lower Manhattan, with lunch at Ryan McGuire’s Irish Pub. Tickets for the trip are $150 person which includes round trip coach travel, tours, and lunch. A deposit of $75 is required to reserve your seat with the final $75 payment due no later than August 15.
The trip is nearly filled but some seats still remain. “We gave first dibs to our Mayo members, but since we opened it up to the public we’ve had a lot of interest,” says Lynskey. “We even had an LAOH from Delaware reach out and a handful of their members have signed up. It’s amazing how many people are in our orbit.”
If you’d like to go on the trip, make checks payable to Mayo Association of Philadelphia, c/o Cathleen Lynskey, 387 Jefferson Drive, Southampton, PA 18966. Venmo arrangements can be made by contacting Maureen Callahan at 215-913-5354. For more information, contact Cathleen Lynskey at [email protected] or Maureen Callahan at [email protected].
