The docudrama “Hope” looks at how Knock, a small Irish village in county Mayo has become a place that is visited by over a million pilgrims a year, where life changed for most of the inhabitants either directly or indirectly due to what happened on that rainy night in August of 1879.The docudrama tells the story of what life was like in Ireland at that time, the hardships and suffering the Irish people were going through since the great famine of 1845 when about one million people died and a million more emigrated.
Hope is made up of high quality re-enactments depicting everyday life before the apparition, showcasing the poor living conditions the Irish people had to live in under British rule, the food crisis, the land war, the coffin ships and then of the miraculous moment when Our Holy Mother appeared to 15 witnesses changing their lives forever and giving the Irish people hope and comfort when they needed it the most.
The dramatisations are intertwined with various interviews of people whose lives have been touched by Knock, from invalids seeking miraculous cures, the everyday pilgrims to the shrine’s handmaids, relatives of the original witnesses and the parish priest Fr Richard Gibbons.To conclude the docudrama covers the two investigations completed by the church into the apparition and show with definitive proof that Our Lady, the Queen of Ireland certainly did appear that night and that Knock even today in a secular society has place in the heart of the Irish.
