Raggy, I've made two trips to Ireland, both with church groups. I went to Knock on the first trip, and I wasn't impressed. There was a "basilica" that looked like a football stadium, with the bleacher seats divided into different sections for each county. There were basins outside with faucets for holy water. In downtown Knock, there was an outdoor marketplace with all sorts of religious mementos, mostly made in Taiwan. Tacky, tacky, tacky. I did find some good songbooks at a store in downtown Knock, though.
We had Mass in the glass chapel that was built onto the back of the Knock parish church where the people had the apparition. I admit that was nice - the vision was very complex, with about 7 figures (including a lamb) that were seen on the outside back wall of the church. Inside the glass chapel were statues mounted on the outside wall of the church, depicting the vision.
But I didn't like Knock enough to ever want to go back. The second trip, I left the group during their day at Knock, and I went birdwatching on Galway Bay with Martin Ryan, and then to a pub sing and a barbecue at Martin's house. Beat the hell out of Knock.

The religious articles at Fatima were of far better quality, and there was an interesting quaintness to them. But the way they were displayed, side-by-side-by-side, but struck me as very funny - this one (click), especially.

I guess I might say that the original people who had the visions at Knock and at Fatima, may have been having a mystical experience. But when crowds of people gathered after hearing about the original visions, all of a sudden what was once a mystical experience, became a miracle. The doubt and confusion were gone then, replaced by hysteria and mindless certainty.

There's a strong element of folklore in all these shrines and apparitions and saints and such, and I find it all very interesting. My seminary education made me skeptical of all these things, and we seminarians and our professors made fun of a lot of this stuff. Over the years, I've collected preposterous religious stories and saint stories, because I found them so entertaining. The Miracle of Santarem (Portugal) is one of the most colorful and entertaining ones.

-Joe-