Knock

This small Irish town is both a tourist and spiritual destination, a county of beautiful Blue Flag beaches that alternate with desolate countryside, creating a striking and unique combination that is rarely found elsewhere.

 

 

It is located in County Mayo, the third county in Ireland for importance and size, which is situated in the west of the country; In 2012 the nearby town of Westport in the same county was judged to be the ‘Best place in Ireland to live’, according to ‘The Irish Times’, beating some 536 other competing places, the merit of which is due mainly to the truly unique community spirit of the local inhabitants, who personally work hard to keep their town welcoming and extraordinarily clean. If we add to this the excellent restaurants, traditional music, beaches perfect for surfing, sailing and unique excursions, it is clear why each year thousands of tourists from all over the world come to the county, where they also find the small town of Knock.

 

Not everyone knows, perhaps, that the town, each year, is also the destination of pilgrimages of approximately a million and a half people, second only in the world to the Sanctuaries of Fatima and Lourdes. The vision by two local women of three bright images of the Virgin Mary, together with St. James and St. John the Evangelist, who wished to transmit spiritual messages to save the world, dates back, in fact, to 21 August 1879.

 

 

From then there was a succession of miracles and these were followed by the construction of a large cathedral, the only one and the first in Ireland, named Our Lady of Knock. Even Pope John Paul II officially ratified the sacred nature of the place almost a century later, personally visiting it during his papacy and gifting a golden rose, a coveted and rare papal recognition, to the sanctuary.  

 

 

 

 

Each September, lovers of good food head to the Westport Food Festival from all over Ireland and from abroad to taste local products from the surrounding countryside, which offer a wide range of delicious flavours, and which local producers display with pride on their colourful stalls: sausages, cold meats, mature cheeses, and vegetables cooked in different ways, and above all with great imagination, particularly in the preparation of potatoes, which are almost a national dish and an important food resource during the numerous periods of famine that have affected the country over the course of the centuries.

Testi di Anna Fusai