http://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/150000-on-pilgrimage-to-Knock-to-honor-mass-apparition-of-...    ..

..On the evening of August 21, 1879, fifteen local witnesses, young and old, adhered to having seen a miraculous apparition of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph and Saint John the Evangelist – beside them, an altar with a cross, the figure of a lamb on the altar, and angels. Two Commissions of Enquiry - one in 1879 and one in 1936) - accepted their testimonies as trustworthy. The organizers of the 38th annual Knock Novena have estimated that up to 150,000 people will travel from all across Ireland for the nine-day pilgrimage at the site of the 1879 apparition.