20,000 head for Knock, by air, by land and on foot

Kathleen Naughton and Maggie Duffy arrived in Knock at 3.30am yesterday after a 19-mile walk from Kathleen's home at Rooskey, near Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon. They set off at 10pm on Tuesday, expecting wind and rain but there was neither. Instead "it was a grand night for walking," Maggie said.

Kathleen had just finished work at the local Oakwood nursing home an hour before they set out. "Ye're mad" Eithne, a work colleague, told them, but they did it anyway. It was Kathleen's third time to walk to Knock for the national novena and for the Feast of the Assumption. The last time she did it was 14 years ago.

Maggie had never done it before and, though she had not done any training, was none the worse for wear.

It was just after the 6am Mass at the parish church in Knock. "Are you mad?" they replied when asked whether they planned to walk home as well.

Brendan Donnellan and his wife Eileen had walked the eight miles from Ballyhaunis. They left home at 4.30am and were in time for Mass at 6am. They too were getting a lift home.

Inside the packed church parish priest Msgr Joe Quinn prayed for fine weather. When the sun made a guest appearance as the Mass ended, he asked the congregation: "Will ye manage one verse of Hail Queen of Heaven before ye go at this hour of the morning?" And they did.

In the sacristy later, as Fr Norbert Kinolo from Tanzania - "he's studying in Rome and is here for his second summer" - put on vestments before he celebrated the 7am Mass, Msgr Quinn's thoughts wandered back 30 years. "I was here, in the sanctuary, when the first national novena took place," he said.

Msgr Quinn went off "for a cup of tea" as Fr Norbert began his Mass before a growing congregation.

Outside, the numbers of of praying pilgrims also began to grow, as shops and stalls opened on the village street.

Statues of the Madonna and child were on offer for €120. The Sacred Heart was the same price, although Joseph and the child was an inexplicable €199.

But the most exorbitant price, considering the summer we have had and the tarmac-splintering showers at Knock yesterday, was surely the €39.99 tag on the Child of Prague.

Considering that he will most likely face redundancy soon, after all the weddings and other special events he allowed the rain fall on this summer, his price is a blatant exercise in pure cheek.

More reasonable was "Knock Rock" at a euro a large stick.

Also there were all those gleaming Traveller mobile homes along one side of the street, with predominantly British and Limerick registered numbers parked nearby.

August 15th is a traditional day for Travellers to visit Knock. Shops near the mobiles were closed.

A man from Westport wondered whether he should park his car in the area. He complained angrily about Travellers who packed out a man's field with mobile homes at Murrisk when they climbed Croagh Patrick.

A Traveller man had another angle. "Our fathers and forefathers came here on August 15th. They are racist against us. They won't let us park. We have to park on the street."

Also among the thousands of pilgrims there yesterday were people from Poland, Nigeria and the Philippines. It was estimated that by the end of the day the attendance at all events would exceed 20,000.

In his homily at the 3pm Mass in the basilica yesterday, retired professor of moral theology at Maynooth, Fr Vincent Twomey, bemoaned the moves the Government was making to combat crime and corruption.

"Every time I read in the newspapers that, responding to increased levels of crime, the Government has decided to increase the number of gardaí or, when faced with some new scandal involving corruption in business or politics, the Government has decided to set up new tribunals or ethical committees, I shudder." He said these measures were not a "solution to moral decay".

"They are but harbingers of a police state and of a society mired in red tape, where trust has disappeared and freedom might one day be but a faint memory of the older generation."

He said that "without a stock of virtue, society literally decays, since there is no really effective way to overcome corruption except through the cultivation of virtue".