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  • Irish Travellers at Knock: Contesting Sacred Space
  • Attracta M. Brownlee

The history and the full significance of the Irish Travellers’ association with Knock has yet to be elucidated, despite the many admirable studies of the famous shrine from historical, anthropological, and sociological perspectives.1 Recent decades have seen an unmistakable “dethroning” of Marianism from its central place in Irish Catholic devotions, a point well documented by James S. Donnelly, Jr.2 Despite this trend in the larger Irish society, the majority of today’s Travellers retain a great fidelity to the Virgin Mary and to particular shrines associated with her, such as the statue of Our Lady of Clonfert, in County Galway, Lady’s Island in Wexford, and Knock in County Mayo. The rosary is still recited daily by many Traveller women at household shrines, where a statue of Mary is typically on prominent display. The Marian traditions in Traveller life are distinctly gendered: Traveller women make these household altars, and men rarely participate in the domestic devotions.3

Official church feast days of the Virgin Mary have long been important pilgrimage days at Knock. On the eves of important feasts of the Virgin, all-night vigils were kept in the church, and the all-night vigil on the eve of the Feast of the Assumption (August 15) attracted the largest congregations.4 A 1957 report [End Page 126] in the Knock Shrine Annual emphasizes that the Feast of the Assumption was traditionally the occasion when families made their own private pilgrimages to Knock, rather than participating in organized parish or group pilgrimages:

This has always been a special “Family Day” at Knock Shrine and the thousands of pilgrims who visit the Shrine do not belong to any organised pilgrimage, but come privately on their own, or in family groups. . . . A feature of the traditional Assumption pilgrimage has always been the number of pilgrims who not alone walk long distances to the Shrine (many of them fasting) but who make the Stations of the Cross (outside) on their knees.5

Traveller families have almost certainly participated in the celebrations of the Feast of the Assumption at the shrine over many decades. What is less certain, however, is the actual number of Travellers in the past who made the annual August pilgrimage. Records kept by Knock Shrine generally refer to official parish or diocesan pilgrimages or to the organized pilgrimages of religious confraternities or sodalities. The documents make no mention of Travellers.6 This is, in itself, not surprising. Travellers have largely been “written out” of Irish history, and it is only in recent years that historians and anthropologists have attempted to illuminate their history on the island.7

Ethnographic accounts collected from older members of the Travelling community during fieldwork make clear that Traveller pilgrims have worshipped at Knock going back over many decades. Older people have reminisced about how, as small children, they were brought to Knock by their parents. They also remembered hearing stories of how their parents and grandparents had also visited Knock when they themselves were young. In the past, many Travellers camped on the outskirts of the village and walked to the shrine in their bare feet. They came to Knock not only to worship the Virgin Mary, but also to socialize. The Feast of the Assumption was an important matchmaking day, though matchmaking also occurred at such events as fairs, sports meetings, patterns, and other church festivals where large numbers of Travellers met up each year.

Traditionally, most Travellers at Knock journeyed around defined circuits and stayed within a relatively circumscribed area of the countryside, generally [End Page 127] camping along quiet country roads and laneways on the outskirts of towns and villages.8 The reports of older Travellers and residents of Knock leave no doubt that Traveller families camped regularly in the Knock area. For Travellers, the landscape is rich in both personal and social meanings. Travellers have frequented such gatherings as fairs at Ballinasloe, patterns at such holy wells as Our Lady’s Well at Athenry, and pilgrimages to Croagh Patrick and Lough Derg. Knock would certainly have been one of the religious shrines on their rounds. They came to worship and...

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