The Charleville apparition
ON the 9th of June 1832 it was alleged that the Virgin Mary appeared in Charleville’s Catholic parish church, which was then in Chapel Street, leaving certain ashes, which she warned were the only protection against an outbreak of cholera.
The above is the subject of an online performance in conjunction with this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival, which is partially based on research material provided by members of Charleville Heritage Society and others.
The apparition of the Virgin Mary is reputed to have appeared on the altar of Charleville Parish Church in Chapel Street in the town on the 9th June 1832.
She left certain ashes on the altar, which she said, would be a protection against cholera, and left instructions that the ashes should be taken to neighbouring houses and left under the rafters there. Those householders should then go to four more houses to spread the message, and so on.
The event caused widespread panic amongst the people, and spread rapidly from the North Cork area throughout the country.
A report on the matter by Major General G.H. Barry of Ballyclough House, Mallow, was forwarded to Dublin Castle, which stated the there was panic among the people. “My own workman told me that when he was called at three o’clock in the morning he looked out and saw fields full of people in their shirts running about as if they were mad.”
In a space of four hours between midnight and four o’clock it had spread across an area of more that forty square miles, from Charleville and Mitchelstown on the northern border of the county to ‘a large tract in the south of the Blackwater.’
From there it was recorded two days later in the midlands, and eventually made its way to the border counties with Ulster, with the deposits to be left in houses changing from ashes to turf, straw and stones.