Father Prout was the pseudonym of Francis Sylvester Mahony, possibly the greatest champion of the Blarney Stone. He added the famous lines to Milliken's 'Groves of Blarney'...
"There is a stone there, that whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent. Tis he may clamber, to a lady's chamber, Or become a member of parliment. A clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or An out-and-outer to be let alone. Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him. Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone."
A friend of Dickens and Thackeray, Mahony had a great sense of mischief and much of that was reflected in his publication, Reliquaries of Father Prout, wherein he evangelised fulsomely of the benefits of kissing the stone.