Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone

Blarney castle is about about five miles northwest of the town of Cork, Ireland. Here's the Google map of the site. Most of the ruins that are left of the castle proper date shortly after 1446, but the castle itself was first built sometime before 1200. Today the grounds contain ruins of the mid-fifteenth century castle, and a few buildings. The building include Blarney House, a fairly typical nineteenth century mansion built in 1874 by the castle's new English owner, and now open to the public. The grounds encompass landscaping and a series of gardens from the eighteenth century. And, of course, the Blarney stone.

The castle was an active fortification until 1446 when it was destroyed. It was subsequently rebuilt by Cormac MacCarthy, the King of Muenster. He built a fairly serious edifice designed to withstand a siege, and it did him good service in several conflicts, as well as serving his descendants. Ultimately, though, the castle was devastated by Oliver Cromwell's forces in 1646. The MacCarthys fled Ireland for the Continent. They returned and took possession of the castle during the restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660, but then left again after the Battle of the Boyne.

Blarney, the name of the castle and the surrounding village, is derived from the Irish blarna; a plain. But English word blarney, meaning

1. Smooth, flattering talk.

2. Deceptive nonsense.

According to legend—legend which I have as yet been unable to find documented in any source from the sixteenth century, or indeed, in anything before the nineteenth century—the association of blarney with a certain verbal agility at flattery, derives from none other than the first Queen Elizabeth. Supposedly, the then owner of Blarney Castle, Dermot McCarthy was instructed to surrender his castle to the Queen as concrete proof of his loyalty to the Crown of England. Repeatedly, he assured the Queen that he would, of course, do exactly that, but repeatedly, something intervened to prevent him from resigning his castle. Supposedly, after several such delays, Queen Elizabeth I is said to have exclaimed in some frustration "More Blarney talk." There are several versions of this story—each has a slightly different response attributed to the Queen, or sometimes not to Queen Elizabeth, but to the Lord President of Munster.

Despite the folk etymologies for blarney, the fame of Blarney castle probably has more to do with some of the folklore surrounding the "Blarney stone," a stone built into one of the towers on the castle's remaining battlements. There are a number of different origin legends surrounding the stone; most notably that it's a fragment of the Stone of Scone (the rest of which is in England), given to the McCarthys as a reward from Robert the Bruce, for supporting him in war against the English, defeated at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314, or that it is what remains of the Lia Fail, one of the sacred stones of Ireland. There are no references to the stone before the eighteenth century, which is a bit odd, given that it was part of the tower structure built in the mid fifteenth century. Legend has it, however, that kissing the Blarney stone will confer the gift of blarney upon the kisser. In order to accomplish the kiss, the person must climb all the way to the top of the tower, where there is a narrow parapet. Then he or she must lie down, and, while holding iron bars set into the tower, lean over in order to kiss the Blarney stone. For some very obvious reasons—see the image inserted above—this is best done with a second person's help. Earlier, visitors were reportedly held upside down by their ankles and dangled over the edge of the parapet in order to manage the lucky osculation.

There are some problems with the story about the stone; most notably, that it appears to be exactly the same sort of limestone that the castle itself is made from, limestone that is still locally quarried. The limestone formed about 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous age, and the particular piece of limestone known as the Blarney stone doesn't appear at all remarkable or different in shape or size from its fellows. It's also a little odd that it would be placed in a location where it is entirely unprotected, and exposed to the wind and weather, when it might just as easily have been inserted inside an internal wall.

The Blarney stone is clearly well-worn by thousands of visitors kissing and touching it. That alone, never mind the hazards of contorting oneself in order to kiss the stone, might give one pause before saluting the stone. I don't, by the way, believe the tale that locals routinely urinate on the stone; while I suppose an agile man might manage the feat, there is always someone standing by on the walkway near the parapet, and the walkway is not publicly accessible outside the castle's open hours. That said, any number of important figures are said to have kissed the stone, ranging from Sir Walter Scott, to various celebrities, and yes, even United States presidents. I leave it to your judgment whether the potential benefit is worth the difficulties.