The Reilly family from Eyrecourt is attributing 11-year-old Stephen’s recovery to a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in 2013, the Connacht Tribune reports.

The newspaper reported that Stephen was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of six, which later spread to his lungs and lymph nodes, and he subsequently lost one of his legs.

Stephen’s father Michael told the newspaper the family travelled to Crumlin Children’s Hospital on New Year’s Eve 2012 to be told that the cancer had returned.

“After two days of tests the doctors told us that the cancer had spread to his lungs and lymph nodes and that there was no more that they could do,” Mr Reilly said.

The Reillys had already booked the pilgrimage by this point and decided to go ahead with their plans.

Mr Reilly claimed that a number of unusual occurrences took place during the trip.

He said that his son saw a statue of the Virgin Mary move, and that he himself saw “what might be described as the impression of a giant hand over his son’s head”.

Mr Reilly said that Stephen’s scans showed a slight improvement two days after the family returned from Medjugorje, the town where it is claimed that the Virgin Mary appeared to six local children in 1981.

Mr Reilly said that his son subsequently went from strength to strength, and in July of that year, was taken off the books of the Galway Hospice.

Last month, Stephen and his father returned to Medjugorje, where the boy went up Cross Mountain unaided.

“I only carried him through a really hard part and the ramp to the cross at the top,” Mr Reilly said.

DISCOVER MORE CONTENT LIKE THIS