Knock: The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Knock: The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland Patrick Maume Knock: The Virgin's Apparition in Nineteenth-Century Ireland. By Eugene Hynes. (Cork: Cork University Press/Attic Press. 2008. Pp. xx, 368. $62.52. ISBN 978-1-859-18440-0.) This work by a social anthropologist born in the 1940s close to the Marian shrine at Knock argues that the 1879 Marian vision should be seen as the conjunction of traditional oral folk and vision beliefs represented by the seers and a more clericalized and print-centered form of Catholicism through which the witnesses' accounts were reconstructed by promoters of the vision (so their original experience is ultimately unrecoverable). Hynes reconstructs the beliefs and social structures of Knock before the Potato Famine (assisted by a valuable "insider" memoir by a famine-era migrant to England, who recorded his memories in response to the apparition and whose accuracy is often confirmed by other records), then argues these persisted into the 1870s (the famine had relatively limited impact on Knock, fostering a sense of providential deliverance) but broke down as partible inheritance among extended families (sustained by seasonal migrants' earnings) was replaced by stem-inheritance of indivisible holdings. At the same time, the community faced local and national crises of authority. The relatively [End Page 863]lenient local landlord and his paternalistic agent were elderly; their successors might not maintain their tacit understandings with the tenantry. The authority of many priests (including Father Bartholomew Cavanagh of Knock) was challenged by the lay-led Land League, which despite predominantly Catholic leadership was opposed even by the aged Archbishop John MacHale, whose stature as folk hero rested on his image as champion of the poor. (Hynes's recovery of the full extent, significance, and popular construction of MacHale's image, as against more archive-centered accounts that highlight criticisms by clerical rivals, is a highpoint.) The Beirne family, who provided the majority of the Knock seers, were closely allied to the priest, experiencing generational difficulties, and as graziers potentially threatened by the land agitation. Hynes suggests the apparition could be read as rebuking or upholding Cavanagh and MacHale, depending on the recipient's sympathies; this ambiguity underlay its appeal. Hynes argues convincingly that the picture of top-down "devotional revolution" or "Tridentine evolution" rolled out from east to west conceals a complex pattern of adaptation where older practices were remodeled. Some of his evidence is almost painfully convincing. (Gallogly's history of the Diocese of Kilmore echoes the widespread view that the Stations of the Cross devotion appeared only in the 1850s while reprinting an 1820s picture of a church with the Stations. In this case, Hynes shows, a longstanding popular devotion was revamped in the mid-nineteenth century.) Hynes's reconstruction of nineteenth-century Knock is exemplary in its intellectual daring and the depth of evidence deployed, and his discussion of how the seers' accounts were reshaped when recorded by clerical investigators who assumed the authenticity of the vision they were supposed to be investigating is very challenging. The depth and coherence of Hynes's interpretation may, however, give a misleading impression that he provides the last word on the subject. In fact, he employs many speculations, some inherently unprovable while others require further research. For example, Hynes suggests the early dying away of the Knock devotion reflects the absence of rationalist critics of Catholicism in Ireland (unlike France), so there was no felt need to assert it against them. In fact, Conservative/Protestant papers such as the Dublin Evening Mail(still denouncing the shrine in 1882) subjected Knock to sustained ridicule, associating it and the Land League as evidence of popular barbarism and unfitness for self-government; why, then, did this not revive popular devotion? Hynes shows limited knowledge of "ultramontane" and "elite" devotions and procedures. (He presents the image of a crowned Virgin as unique to Knock because it was not found at Lourdes; the 1846 La Salette apparition—unmentioned in Hynes's index, although he notes references in contemporary accounts of Knock—featured a crowned Virgin.) Devotional use of clay, mortar, and rainwater is described as "animistic," but could be presented as [End Page 864]Catholic sacramentalism...