<P> A similar apparition reported by another teenage girl at Lourdes, France, in 1858 had been well publicised across Ireland by 1879 . In 1854, Pope Pius IX promulgated a bull proclaiming the feast of the Immaculate Conception for the Universal Church and brought a renewal in Marian devotion . </P> <P> Visions linked to religious matters were not unknown in rural Irish faith communities . Primary education was in most cases founded and funded by local Catholics and had more doctrinal and rigorous religious content than the modern Irish primary school . </P> <P> The evening of Thursday, 21 August 1879, was a very wet night . At about 8 o'clock the rain beat down in driving sheets when Mary Beirne, a girl of the village, accompanying the priest's housekeeper, Mary McLoughlin, home, stopped suddenly as she came in sight of the gable of the little church . There she saw standing a little out from the gable, were three life - size figures . She ran home to tell her parents and soon others from the village had gathered . The witnesses stated they saw an apparition of Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and Saint John the Evangelist at the south gable end of the local small parish church, the Church of Saint John the Baptist . Behind them and a little to the left of Saint John was a plain altar . On the altar was a cross and a lamb (a traditional image of Jesus), with adoring angels . A farmer, about half a mile away from the scene, later described what he saw as a large globe of golden light above and around, the gable, circular in appearance . For nearly two hours a group that fluctuated between two and perhaps as many as twenty - five stood or knelt gazing at the figures as rain lashed them in the gathering darkness . </P> <P> The vision of Mary was described as being beautiful, standing a few feet above the ground . She wore a white cloak, hanging in full folds and fastened at the neck . The crown appeared of a golden brightness; the upper parts of the crown appeared to be a series of sparkles, or glittering crosses . Immediately beneath the crown, where it fitted her brow, was a rose . She was described as "deep in prayer", with her eyes raised to heaven, her hands raised to the shoulders or a little higher, the palms inclined slightly to the shoulders . </P>

Who did our lady of knock appear to
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