A dictionary definition

‘Blarney’: He has licked the blarney stone; he deals in the wonderful, or tips us the traveller. The blarney stone is a triangular stone on the very top of an ancient castle of that name in the county of Cork in Ireland, extremely difficult of access; so that to have ascended to it, was considered as a proof of perseverance, courage, and agility, whereof many are supposed to claim the honour, who never achieved the adventure: and to tip the blarney, is figuratively used telling a marvellous story, or falsity; and also sometimes to express flattery. Irish.

(Definition taken from The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose)

The satirical Survey of Ireland, written in the early 17th century by Aengus O’Daly, tells us of the owners’ gift of the blarney. On a visit to McDermod McCarthy at Blarney Castle, he says “Flattery I got for food in great Musgraidhe of MacDiarmoda.”

“The truth is that the Irish are so clear-headed and critical that they still regard rhetoric as a distinct art, as the ancients did. Thus a man makes a speech as a man plays a violin, not necessarily without feeling, but chiefly because he knows how to do it.

Another instance of the same thing is that quality which is always called the Irish charm. The Irish are agreeable, not because they are particularly emotional, but because they are very highly civilised.

Blarney is a ritual; as much of a ritual as kissing the Blarney Stone.”

GK Chesterton 1909

“Boloney is flattery laid on with a trowel. Blarney is flattery laid on with the lips; that is why you have to kiss a stone to get it”

Monsignor Fulton Sheen

There are some who believe that they do not need additional oratorical gifts. In a personal letter to the Blarney Annual, George Bernard Shaw ‘indicated that it was not necessary for him to seek eloquence at Blarney”, adding “My natural gifts in that direction being sufficient, if not somewhat excessive”.

Of course, if we were unkind, we might suggest that if he had, he would not have needed Lerner and Loewe to turn ‘Pygmalion’ into the internationally successful ‘My Fair Lady’.

Sir Richard Francis Burton refers to ‘kissing the blarney stone’ in his ‘Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night’ of 1885

“The difference between ‘blarney’ and ‘baloney’ is this:

Baloney is when you tell a 50-year old woman that she looks 18. Blarney is when you ask a woman how old she is, because you want to know at what age women are most beautiful.”

Hollywood and television has a great thing for the Stone being stolen. Bing Crosby has to get it back in the 1949 film, ‘Top O’ The Morning’.

In 1984, it is stolen once more in the internationally popular children’s series, ‘Inspector Gadget’ – by Doctor Claw. As if we’d be so careless.

The northeast turret, being the highest point, was a lookout post and at one time in the early nineteenth century housed the Blarney Stone itself – or so it was claimed. A more likely explanation perhaps comes from the writer W.R. Le Fanu in his ‘Seventy Years of Irish Life’ (1896). Talking of the undoubted gifts of eloquence offered by the Stone, he wrote:

“But many, especially ladies, who climbed to the top of the old castle for the express purpose of kissing the Blarney stone, found that none of these good results followed. But why? Their guide, to save himself and them trouble, had made them kiss the wrong stone - a little stone in the corner of the tower, which has no virtue whatever.

The real stone, which I am proud to say I kissed many a year ago, is about four feet below the parapet on the outside of the castle. To kiss it, you must be held by the legs, head downwards, over the battlements.”

Our British visitors will no doubt remember the desperate attempts by Alan Partridge to pitch new programme ideas to the BBC.

One of his better thoughts was to come live from the Blarney Stone. More recently, Billy Connolly did visit on his televised tour of the British Isles.

The MacCarthys were well known as generous patrons of Irish culture - they created the Bardic School at Blarney which drew scholars from all over Ireland and other parts of the world. During the fifteenth century, Blarney Castle was also renowned as the "Court of Poetry" where bards gathered to read their sonnets and other compositions.

President Clinton claimed at a fundraiser for John Kerry to have kissed the Blarney Stone, although Jay Leno reckoned he’d initially denied it claiming "the stone kissed him.”

“The Blarney stone too, I am afraid, is going out of date. In former days, whoever kissed it was at once endowed with the gift of the blarney, as the old song, "The Groves of Blarney," tells us.

"'Tis there's the stone that whoever kisses
He never misses to grow eloquent;
'Tis he may clamber to a lady's chamber,
Or become a member of Parliament.
"A noble spouter he'll sure turn out, or
An out and outer to be let alone;
Don't try to hinder him, or to bewilder him,
For he is a pilgrim from the Blarney stone."

But many, especially ladies, who climbed to the top of the old castle for the express purpose of kissing the Blarney stone, found that none of these good results followed. But why? Their guide, to save himself and them trouble, had made them kiss the wrong stone - a little stone in the corner of the tower, which has no virtue whatever.

The real stone, which I am proud to say I kissed many a year ago, is about four feet below the parapet on the outside of the castle. To kiss it, you must be held by the legs, head downwards, over the battlements.”

Seventy Years of Irish Life
Being Anecdotes and Reminiscences
By W. R. Le Fanu

Globe Trotting Nelly Bly (Joe Hart ca 1880)

I have here in my hand a lengthy cablegram,  
That came from far across the sea;  
It's from Miss Nelly Bly, and its contents I will try  
To tell if you will listen unto me.  
She's trying very hard to beat the world's record  
To round the world in seventy-five days,  
Of the many funny sights in her cablegram she writes  
Of the people and their very curious ways.

   With an umbrella and a grip she gave her friends the slip  
   Far across the deep blue sea,  
   It was a pleasant trip for her grip was not "La Grippe"  
   Consequently she was happy as could be.  

When she landed in Cork, to Killarney took a walk,  
And kissed the Blarney Stone with her sweet lips;  
She told funny tales to the Prince of Wales,  
And left him laughing almost in a fit.  
She did the Gaiety dance and set Paris in a trance,  
Sang "Little Annie Rooney" to Jules Verne;  
She would have spoken French and Greek, if she could have stayed a week,  
But she knew fond hearts for her at home did yearn.

Elizabeth Jane Cochran was best known under her pen name, Nellie Bly. An early investigative journalist, she pioneered undercover reporting working for Pulitzer’s New York World. In 1888, following the success of Jules Verne’s ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’, the World sent her off to do the same. She succeeded in just over seventy two days - the first woman to travel around the world unaccompanied at all times by a man.

She became a great heroine for women everywhere. Her trip was hard work – remember this is long before air travel – and encompassed England, France, Italy, Hong Kong, China, Colombo, and San Francisco – and many points in between. We are very proud that kissing the Blarney Stone was one of her first objectives; they do say she could talk her way out of any situation on her trip...

In 1842, John Hogan even claimed that the Blarney Stone might be the very ‘centre of the world’.

‘Thus strong the Blarney influence is shown,
E’en upon those most distant from the stone:-
The power, alike attractive, through the whole,
Is found pervading – thus is but the pole.
Astounding thought!- have we the centre here,
Round which revolves the human hemisphere?

When the great novelist Sir Walter Scott visited the Castle in 1825 (following some say in Byron’s footsteps), Father Prout enthused,

“You behold, Sir Walter, in this block the most valuable remnant of Ireland’s ancient glory... Possessed of this treasure, she may well be designated: “First flower of the earth and first gem of the sea”;for neither the musical stone of Memnon, that ‘so sweetly played in tune’, not the oracular stone at Delphi, not the lapidary talisman of the Lydian Gyges, nor the colossal granite shaped into a Sphinx in upper Egypt, nor Stonehenge, nor the Pelasgic walls of Italy’s Palaestrina, offer so many attractions.”

We cannot confirm how many times the Father had kissed the Stone but it must have been many!

You may be interested to know that many people who have taken rocks away from Blarney Castle & the mystical gardens of Rock Close, and brought them home from their vacation, have written to us here, at Blarney Castle, claiming that they have been plagued with the worst luck! Many of them mailing the rocks back to us to be placed in there original position!

All rocks have been returned and we hope that those people go forth with the 'Luck of the Irish'!