The Apparition took place in 1879. For generations, the Mayo shrine has been one of the places in the west of Ireland where travellers converge in summer and autumn, along with Spancil Hill in Clare, Lady's Well in Athenry and at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair in October.

This weekend marks the traditional gathering time for travellers at Knock, as they assemble in preparation for the Feast of the Assumption on Tuesday. The travellers' devotion to Our Lady of Knock is passionate.

According to settled people, Knock in August traditionally represented the manifestation of another passion, a matchmaking day for the travellers, though travellers themselves say this is not altogether true. Matchmaking went on at other fairs and meeting places.

"In the old days, " says Paddy Connors, "you'd have travellers living out in the country. You'd have 20-year-old girls or lads who hadn't seen someone their own age, not even been kissed. They had no way of getting into town. So when their parents went into town, they'd talk about that." He agrees that, in some ways, the motor car, as well as more modern communication, eroded the need for matchmaking.

Famous for matchmaking Of course, Knock is also famous for its matchmaking of settled people. The Knock Marriage Bureau was established in 1968. Its latest progress report, published last month, lists 841 marriages achieved . . . and these are just the ones they know about.

"We're not matchmakers, " says the bureau's Marie Page, "we are an introductory service."

The Knock Marriage Bureau has been renamed the Marriage Introductory Bureau. "People are free to make their own decisions, just as they would if they met at a dance or in a pub." The Marriage Introductory Bureau currently has seven engagements on the go, and Marie is making 40 suggestions, as she calls them, of prospective introductions per week. Traveller matches were never made this way.

"Watching films, you had a special fella for the job, " says Paddy Connors, "but we never had a matchmaker in the travelling community."

Last year, on Assumption Day at Knock, there were quite a few handsome teenagers, both boys and girls, dressed in their best clothes for everyone to look at. Whether this was for matchmaking purposes, or due to a teenage love of display, is a moot point.

Matchmaking, says councillor Martin Ward, deputy mayor of Tuam, "has died off an awful lot.

I've heard of it an awful lot less in the last five years.

In Athenry round August it was a common occurrence. Not now."

Mary Margaret McDonagh agrees. "Maybe one [marriage] in a hundred. You wouldn't know if it was for the good or for the bad, " she says. She's not sorry to see it go. "If you were alone with a fella for an hour, you had to get married. Even if you'd just gone up the road, it was classed as running away. You were never allowed to be on your own.

That was in my mother's time. You had babies having babies. My husband's mother was married at 14. She had 18 children. My mother was married at 20, she had 15."

Travellers have always been a conservative society within a conservative society. Like the settled population, they have undergone enormous change in thepast 10 years. "Huge change, huge change, " says Mary Margaret, who is only 30.

"It's changed so, so fast, it's unbelievable, " says Martin Ward. "Young travellers have become so modernf There are less marriages. There are a lot of single girls and a lot of single lads. The lads are more reluctant to get married, they don't want the responsibility."

Irish through and through If this sounds a familiar comment from the parent of adult children, well, it is. Travellers and settled people have a lot . . . perhaps everything . . . in common. "Travellers' attitudes are very Irish, " says Martin Ward. "They are Irish through and through."

For Joan Connors, the big change is that "there's a lot more mixing, and that's because travellers are settling. And they are better educated."

Although there was always intermarriage, it is now more common. And, like everyone else, travellers are seeing more of their young people living together rather than marrying . . . unheard of in the past.

One thing that hasn't changed, though, is the travellers' religious faith, particularly their devotion to the Virgin. Martin Ward remembers coming to Knock with his parents as a boy, in a convoy of horses and carts. It was a pilgrimage, with sometimes a bit of trading thrown in.

Mary Margaret McDonagh remembers her first visit to Knock, which was not with her family but on a school trip. "I felt so good about myself, so treasure-like, " she says. "We rubbed ourselves off the wall where Our Lady came. My father and mother were very religious. If you had a child born with a problem, you would bring the baby three times. I did that with my baby. And you dress her in Our Lady's colours, blue and white, until she's cured, or to say thanks for a cure. I did that with my baby . . . her bed, her clothes, everything. Some people have done that for seven years."

Some travellers walk to Knock on the eve of Assumption Day, as settled people also do. People walk from Roscommon, Ballyhaunis or Kiltimagh. Mary Margaret did the Kiltimagh walk during her first pregnancy. "Also, if someone was killed on the road, you would walk to Knock from wherever they were killed." Last year, on the first anniversary of the death of a young man who drowned, his brothers and sisters walked a good distance to Knock in memory of him.

On the whole, all agree that things are getting better for travellers . . . much better. However, the relationship between the travellers and Knock is not a universally sunny one. Two years ago, barriers were put up to prevent travellers bringing their caravans into the car parks and, crucially, the caravan park.

The interview with Joan and Paddy Connors took place in their borrowed caravan . . . they live in a house on the side of the road near the medical centre, and adjacent to one of the toilet blocks on the shrine campus. According to them, anyone with a recognisably traveller name won't get a space in the caravan park. Paddy says that his brother was so insulted by the way he was treated at Knock that he hasn't visited for five years.

"Numbers are falling, " he says. "We're trying to hold the religion together, " says Joan Connors, "and they're scattering it."

Martin Ward addressed Mayo County Council on the subject. While no one had the right to obstruct a public road, he said, the problem would be solved "by opening a green field area every year and charging rent, providing Portaloos and a waste contract. It is a religious tradition, after all."

"Knock is for everybody, " says Pat Lavelle, the director of Knock Shrine. However, there have been problems with some travellers . . .

accusations of stealing and so on.

(Joan and Paddy Connors are sceptical about these, to say the least. ) Last week, there was a row about an ambulance getting to the medical centre past the caravans.

Martin Ward admits that there can be an element in every group which ruins it for the others. Knock seems to be caught up in an ongoing impasse over local authorities' reluctance to designate halting places for travellers . . . for which they have been given government funding . . . for fear of antagonising local communities and traders.

Having said that, Martin Ward says he has "never had any problems" at Knock. Paddy Connors says ruefully: "You wouldn't know I was here if I was able to get into the caravan park."

However, last year, when he was here with his brothers, he met a genial local publican. "He even came out and drank with us, " says Paddy Connors.

"He couldn't have been nicer."