We spent a night in a Claremorris boarding-house, where the landlady, who had fat earlobes, joked, “I s'pose people like yourselves are never going to Knock?”
Father replied jovially, “No need to knock, we're indoors already.” To us he murmured when she'd gone back to the kitchen, “Never give a nosy person room for a comeback. Humor is the great escape.”
The landlady poked her head out of the kitchen and said to Nora, “Aren't you a Buckley girl from near Knock? I'd know you anywhere,” and Nora whispered to us, “My mother has very big teeth too.”
Father whispered gallantly, “You haven't big teeth, Nora, you have small jaws.”
Next afternoon we drove to the church where the people had seen all the apparitions.
“We'd better count them up,” said Father on the way. “Now, who exactly made an appearance?”
Euclid, naturally, had devoured every detail.
“This is what the newspapers said. The Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, Saint John the Evangelist, and the Lamb of God were seen by a total of fifteen people altogether, and they said that the Virgin Mary was wearing a white robe and a gold crown, and that her husband, Saint Joseph, was wearing a white robe and that he was very old.”
Father said, as though thinking aloud, “I wonder what time of his life Saint Joseph was at when he agreed to make this appearance? Or maybe there's no aging in the next life? But if there isn't, why does he look old at all, why can't he look like he was when he was, say, thirty? Or my age? The forties are a good time for a man to look handsome.”
Euclid said, “And Saint John was wearing long robes too—”
Father interrupted. “Did they say what color?”
Euclid said, “I think green.”
Father said, “Ah, yes. Green for Ireland. I wonder do they change colors according to the country they appear in. Maybe the red, white, and blue for England. Or I s'pose England doesn't get divine apparitions; they're not deserving enough.”
Euclid said, “There were angels hovering around the lamb.”
Father said thoughtfully, “And not around the Virgin Mary or Saint Joseph or Saint John? Boys-oh-dear. Well, that's a strange decision the angels took. Maybe they knew they'd irritate the people? Or maybe they knew the lamb mightn't care too much, might like the companionship?”
This grave conversation continued until Nora, from her perch on the long side-seat, said, “Sir, there's Auntie Mary's house.”
We all disembarked and Nora went to the door of the cottage. A gray cat looked at us, stuck its tail up in the air straight as smoke from a calm day's chimney, but then disdained us. Next a lady of about Mother's age—that is, in her early forties—came out to greet us. She wore a saintly face, carried rosary beads, and responded to Nora's introductions.
“Sir, you're very welcome to Knock, but when you get up the road, you'll find it packed. There's people here from everywhere in the world.”
My father said, “Is there any harm in asking you what you saw? Or are you sick and tired of being asked?”
Nora's Auntie Mary said, “Sir, how could you get sick and tired of something like that and it so wonderful and now with all the miracles?”
Father said, “And a very bright light, I hear?”
“Oh sir, it was the light of Heaven, we know that now, and the Blessed Virgin herself the brightest light of all.”
Father said, “I suppose she'd have to be, wouldn't she? If she wasn't given a bright light what hope would there be for any of us?” He spoke so warmly to Auntie Mary, so charmingly.
“She was two feet off the ground, sir, and her eyes lifted to Heaven in prayer for us all.”
“Did she say who she was praying for?” Father's questions had a pro-found effect on Euclid, who angled himself so that he could look up and see both faces.
“No, sir, she didn't say a thing. But you could tell from the look on her face that she was praying for all of us, and sure she'd have known we were after having another famine here, with the potatoes failed again.”
“I heard that,” said Father, as somberly as a heart breaking. “I heard that indeed. I'm sorry for your trouble.”
“Oh, sir, we're out of it now—there's so much money coming in, sure, can't we buy potatoes. We've all these people coming here, thousands and thousands. Didn't I hear there's people coming here from Portugal?”
“Portugal?! Well, well.” But Father seemed intent on getting back to the apparition. “So the Blessed Virgin was in a white robe and a gold crown, they tell me, and you saw her and she was two feet above the ground. What of the two gentlemen? Were they—were they hovering too?”
In all my time, I have never encountered a man who speaks so kindly to others as my father does. Nora's Auntie Mary warmed to him.
“Sir, they did, they hovered a bit, about two feet up, I'd say. Yes, about two feet, that'd be it.”
I saw Euclid hold out his hand to try and measure two feet above the ground.
“Did they say anything? Or did they look at you?”
“Sir, not one of them said a single word. And how could they look at us and their eyes raised in prayer to Heaven above? Although Paddy Hill, he's taller than the rest of us, he was able to see into our Blessed Lady's eyes, right in—and he could see the very cores of her eyes.”
Father said, “The lamb, was that now a young lamb, I mean newborn, or was it maybe a few weeks old? We've lambs at home.”
“Sir, the fleece was like snow, pure white, and the little mouth soft as velvet, and it had a meekness to it that'd make you proud. As to its age, I'm no good at guessing the age of a lamb, sir. I'd say—well, very young.”
“Did anyone notice how many angels?”
“Oh, sir, they came and they went, fluttering their little wings.”
Father said, in a grave tone, “I see. I see. Well—I s'pose that's what angels do, isn't it?”
“It is, sir, didn't we always know that? Especially the smaller angels.”
“Oh, indeed, indeed.” Father sounded ever more grave. “I mean to say, if it was a large angel and anyone got a clout of one of his wings— I mean, a swan can break a man's arm with a wing.” He prepared to go. “Well—it's very important, we can tell that for a fact. Very important. And yourself? Did you feel in the better of it?”
“I did, sir, I felt better than I felt my whole life and I always felt good, mind you, I was never one for complaining. And now I've no need to complain at all.”
My father's hand romped in his coat and drew out his wallet. “And I hope people are generous to you? For your time? And for giving so hearty an account of your great experience?” he asked.
“People are very good, sir. God is very good.”
“Ah, He is,” said my father, handing over some money, which the lady took and folded into her hand but never inspected.
“Sir, He sends me blessings every day.”
She directed us to the church: “You can't miss it anyway, but you'll have to walk the last bit, there's no horse'd go through a crowd like that.”
Euclid had never seen a crowd of people and seemed apprehensive. I said to him, “But we have had many people in our house and on the terrace.”
Euclid said, “But they were our guests and we knew how they should behave.”
In Ireland, in my time, I have seen a great love of prayer. I myself do not pray, but many good people do, and I respect them for that. The sincerity of prayer that I have seen by people's sick-beds, and the faith that I have heard people express, and the fervor with which they speak their pleadings—all such prayer, I have concluded, comes to resemble a kind of love, a passion for the God who looks over them, and who will bring them hope and salvation.
Many things move me to my soul and one of them is the sight of a venerable priest, all alone in the world, kneeling in his church and taking the opportunity for a quiet prayer in the day, when the church is empty. As I sometimes desire sanctuary from my busy life as a healer, I have seen this sight many times. I have als
o seen an old gentleman or lady come in to pay their respects to their faith, and sit or kneel there quietly, their lips moving tenderly. And I have been moved to my heart's root, and at times have wondered whether my own life might be richer for the inclusion of such faith.
That day at Knock, however, when we first saw the throng of people, I felt none of the peace that such glimpses of quiet piety granted me; indeed, I felt at first fear, and then pity.
We left the house of Nora Buckley's Aunt Mary and Father steered Polly along the road to the village. As we rounded a bend we saw before us as many people as I had ever seen. They stood pressed against each other, moving forward. A general silence prevailed, not a common occurrence in an Irish throng, but this silence had a rustle to it, as of leaves blown along the ground. The crowd edged forward, and as we drew nearer I could hear that the “rustle” came from the shuffle of the feet and the murmured chorus of breathed prayers.
An excitable man waving his arms directed us to a field which contained many conveyances—where another man (clearly the twin of the excitable one) made my father aware that a “donation” in respect of “guarding your side-car, sir,” would be looked upon with approval.
Father again handed over money. He remarked to us that “God has indeed been good to Knock” and we joined the rear of the crowd. Father and I kept Euclid firmly between us as we pressed forward; from behind Nora Buckley grabbed my coat and said that she was afraid.
“Nora, stay close to us,” said Father, “and you'll be all right.”
“Is this apparition thing dangerous, sir?” she asked.
“It could be, it could be—but not to us, Nora,” and I saw that Father smiled.
We now shuffled forward for many minutes and, ahead, I soon perceived the church. By the roadside, men stewarded the press of people forward at a steady pace, saying to us, “Keep going now” but in a gentle and unhurried way. They knew (as did we) the crowd's purpose: to pass the holy place and also hope to see a new apparition.
Soon, we came level with the wall of the church, and Father, using the bulk of his body with great firmness, eased us out of the crowd.
“I want to have a good look,” he said.
A man came forward and said, less than gently, “You can't stop here,” but when Father shook the man's hand “carefully” the man subsided. So we stood and looked—and I also inspected the faces of our little party.
Father scrutinized each part of that church wall as though in its rough surface lay some message, some secret. His eyes traveled from the eaves to the earth—and then he repeated the exercise. Euclid did likewise, and when he found nothing in its blank face he looked above him, seeking to discover, it seemed, whence the apparitions had descended. Again he looked at the wall and once more at the sky, and his expression, though guarded within the sight of so many people shuffling by, had enough in it to tell me that he ranged among excitement, fear, and doubt.
Nora Buckley, when she looked at the wall, whispered to me, “Is there prayers we should be saying? Will that only bring them back? They'd frighten me.”
For my part, I could see a flat surface upon which a vision might with great facility be discerned, I could see above my head the great clouds rolling by, bearing inland on winds from the west—but I felt neither rapture nor mystery. Perhaps, I thought, all this has too recently occurred for the church to have yet a powerful odor of sanctity; and so I turned to look discreetly at the people.
The breadth of that moving stream was about six to eight persons abreast on the narrow roadway, and there seemed no end to the tail of this long, gentle, shuffling animal; more and more people pressed forward—and this was not a Sunday.
All of Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man were represented. I saw infants held aloft to receive such blessing as the apparition had left in the air; children of school age with shining faces looked wonderingly from the lee of their parents. Men and women of marrying age, alone or in the company of their families, ill-dressed or comfortable, paused, stared, and bowed their heads in prayer. Two soldiers in red coats, one with a beard, walked respectfully within the crowd and for once did not receive taunts or strained gibes.
I was surprised to see so many people of comfortable means there, and my father, I noticed, nodded to a corpulent gentleman, whom he later named to me as a prominent judge, and then said, “Now what was he doing there? Seeking forgiveness, I suppose.”
Some pilgrims—for that is what I must call them—seemed exotic, dressed in what they must have considered their best attire, as though they had come in a bright garb intended to decorate such powers as they might find here. And I saw men who must be scholars, farmers, clerks, travelers in commerce, cattlemen, merchants, priests. Most of all, I saw old people; they made up the great bulk of this crowd, and their lips moved unceasingly.
At the foot of the wall crouched a line of strong men, close-knit in their grouping; they waited there to fend off those who would try and capture a relic from the fabric of the church. However, they or the authorities competent for this place relented in one wise, the most poignant sight of all; they had created a separate arena where people who evidently seemed in dire need of divine aid could congregate closest to the church.
I saw that day sights and shapes that I had neither encountered nor imagined; men and women, boys and girls with deformities and physical detractions that I could not have contemplated, much less have lived with. Their faces raised in hope, they and their accompanying relations—parents, sisters, spouses—prayed with a fervor of desperation.
Near our house there dwelt a family where a boy of my age shuffled and made foolish noises. I had seen him but once or twice and, truth to tell, felt in fear of him—and ashamed of myself for that fear. Now I saw more and worse than that: mouths drooling, eyes rolling, figures without arms or legs carried there in giant baskets. I had the thought that, if we were truly to witness miracles, did that mean that we would suddenly see an arm sprout, then a leg, then another arm, then another leg?
This irreverence, I knew, defended me; but as I stood there I saw that Euclid had begun to weep and, though no longer a baby, he turned and buried his face in the skirts of Father's coat.
And I? I made a vow that day—a vow that I must help people, even though I did not have the knowledge as to what fashion and by what means.
For nearly three years I contemplated that day's visions at Knock. We traveled a straighter road home, and we spoke little of our experiences. I kissed Nora Buckley one night beneath the trees in our upper field, a kiss full of teeth and softness. She held me kindly, her arms about my neck, saying, “We shouldn't be doing this” and “Oh, you're very nice.” Soon after, she left our house for work in England, and she died the next year in a mill accident; we sat about the table distraught when we heard the news. Euclid and I mourned her together and Euclid told me that he had always felt safe with her, and that on the days when he felt at his weakest, she gave him strength and made him laugh.
I now began to travel. My parents gave me letters of introduction and I rode here and there out across our lovely country, each journey a little longer than the one before, and I admired and relished what I saw, and I felt soothed every day by the trees and the rivers and the hills and the woods. And all the while I thought of the afflictions I had seen at that unforgettable shrine and wondered whether I might help to alleviate them.
Charles O'Brien was nineteen years old when he felt moved by what he saw at Knock. In a more traditional or conventional Irish household he might have been shaped at that moment for the Catholic priesthood. Yet his future had, it seemed, already been outlined. He, as elder son, would inherit and continue.
Surprisingly, this did not happen; Knock, apparently, handed him a spur that prodded him forward into a life very different from the one anticipated for him. To the natural forces that had already been shaping him, he now added a wish to help his fellow man.
To begin with, he had been born with the poetic advantage of living in a beaut
iful land. And he wished to remain permanently aware of it. The O'Briens lived in the South Riding of County Tipperary, “riding” being an old Norse term for a “thirding,” or a third of a land tract. It runs from Hollyford and Holycross down to the county's capital, Clonmel, birthplace of Laurence Sterne (and, therefore, Tristram Shandy), and home for a time of another English novelist, Anthony Trollope, whose sons were born there.
Beyond Clonmel, the South Riding reaches down to places with lovely names—Kilsheelan, Carrick-on-Suir, Ardfinnan, Knocklofty. The people who live in those lower reaches, flanked by the counties of Cork and Waterford, will tell you that Tipperary grows lovelier the farther south you go. Not much more than sixty miles stem to stern, this is inner space, luscious country, full of limestone beneath the soil, excellent for the bones of racehorses, with a rougher charm than the horse farms of New England and Kentucky or the stud farms of England. At least one racing stable ranks among the most successful in the world.
Although he doesn't mention it, Charles O'Brien must have been put on a horse in early childhood. In the days when all gentlemen saw riding as their primary mode of transport, his father would have taken particular care to introduce his son to it. In time, Charles refers to his mare, Della, as though to a family member, and she gave him a service that lasted for almost thirty years, a good span even by today's well-vetted standards.
On horseback, everything looks different. No truck, juggernaut, or car offers anything like the same vantage or intimacy. The countryside looks richer, sweeter, nearer—and the South Riding through which Charles O'Brien traveled has changed little. From his saddle today he would see the same freshness of green in the fields, the same mottled gray-white of limestone in the ruined abbeys and castles, the same enchanting dimness in the woodlands and copses, the same brown-and-silver sheen of a river glimpsed from the roadway.
Many of the horsemen of his time avoided the thoroughfares and rode their own routes. On the western journey to Tipperary, the shapes of old Norman castles, gaunt and alone against the sky, must have given him a sense of romance. As he rode east, the gentle sweep of the river and the stone arches of the river bridge in Golden brought him harmony, and an encouragement toward pleasant reflection. This was a universe in a small place.
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