Why Statues Weep by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781134962525
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

From this circumstantial account I take it that Archdeacon Cavanagh was capable of deceiving the people for what he probably considered some higher good - whether guarding private property and public order, or increasing religious devotion. I should also mention that the question of such deception is still a matter of debate; for consider those who sanction deceiving terminally ill patients about their illnesses, or governments falsifying information in the interests of national security, or parents telling white lies to children about Santa Claus.

Although I have claimed that Cavanagh engineered the apparition, I am not claiming that he actually operated the magic lantern. I take it that he hired the lantern, but it may have been operated by someone else in Knock, under Cavanagh's supervision. There is a letter in the Tuam diocesan archive from a Michael McConnell, from Belfast, who says that a friend of his called Constable McDermott, who had been stationed at Knock, had told him that the apparition had been produced by a magic lantern operated by a Protestant policeman stationed at Knock. (See Catherine Rynne's Knock: 1879-1979, Dublin, 1979, pp. 67-70.) This, of course, is hearsay, as is the statement I heard nearly eight years ago from a senior member of the Irish judiciary, to the effect that a solicitor of his acquaintance told him that his grandfather hired a magic lantern to Archdeacon Cavanagh during the week in question.

Such oral information is unlikely to persuade believers, but it is worth preserving, if only because it may lead to the discovery of hard evidence in, for example, a letter or diary.

There is some hard evidence (long known) that makes sense within the case I am making, namely, the striking fact that, although Cavanagh was within five minutes' walking distance of the apparition, he refused to see it when asked by his housekeeper, Mary McLoughlin, the first to observe the apparition. Later, Cavanagh is reported to have consoled himself that: 'If I had seen it, many things would have been said that cannot now be advanced with any fair show of reason or probability on their side' (Weekly News, 14 Feb. 1880). I take Cavanagh's absence from the apparition to be nearly as striking (and suspicious) as the disappearance of the original manuscript depositions. My explanation for his absence is that he was implicated, and that his post factum statement suggests his implication. The pattern is not unfamiliar to psychologists: in short, the original cause is transformed into an excuse or consolation.

A similar reversal of cause and effect is also evident, I think, in 'a vivid local memory, passed down in the family of [Patrick Walsh] one of the ... eyewitnesses to the apparition', according to which there was a meeting of Whiteboys, to which young Walsh came:

hater, Patrick Walsh apologised to Archdeacon Cavanagh for hearing him denounced at this meeting which he attended. The people felt that the priest was so devoted to Our Lady that she protected hint from the Whiteboys and those like them.

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