Liam Coyne

Life

William David 'Liam' Coyne (in Irish, Liam Ua Cadhain) was born in 1888 in the west of Ireland. He trained in law and practised as a solicitor in Ballyhaunis, County Mayo. A man of public service, he became chairman of Mayo County Council and was subsequently appointed District Justice for South-West Mayo.

In 1924 he married Judy Begley, the youngest of eleven children of a Claremorris farming family, and the couple settled at Bridgemount House near Belcarra, outside Castlebar. After a pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1934, the Coynes were struck by the contrast between the well-organised reception of pilgrims at the French shrine and the relative neglect of Knock, the site of the 1879 apparition. The following year, in 1935, they founded the Society for the Promotion of Knock Shrine, generally known simply as the Knock Shrine Society.

Liam Coyne devoted the rest of his life to the work of the Society alongside Judy. He was involved in every aspect of its mission — stewarding, correspondence, publications, the organisation of pilgrimages, and the establishment of basic facilities for the care of sick pilgrims. He was a careful researcher of the 1879 apparition and the parish records of Knock, and the author of several books on the shrine, including Cnoc Mhuire in Picture and Story and Venerable Archdeacon Cavanagh — Pastor of Knock 1867–1897, a biographical study of the parish priest who had been present at the original apparition. He also edited the first Knock Shrine Annual, published in 1938, which became the principal vehicle for serious writing on the shrine.

Liam Coyne died on 3 September 1953 and is buried in the Old Cemetery at Knock alongside Judy.