Ireland Travel Stories
A Kiss for the Gift of Gab - Cork, Ireland
 Blarney Castle sits on a hill near River Martin on a picturesque town outside Cork. It was built circa 1200 and destroyed in the 1400's A.D and is currently a privately owned estate which was kindly opened for tourism (or profit). Not that any of this mattered to us; all we wanted to do was kiss that Blarney stone!
The Blarney stone is a slab of bluestone fit into a cresting in the highest level of the castle. Kissing the stone will give you the gift of gab, or eloquence, so they say. A rare gift to be given by a stone, I say. But my main question was: how many people pucker their wet lips upon the stone every day?
My question was answered when I saw the long queue of people coiling through the towers and the narrow ruined staircases, on the balconies and the battlements. We finally reached the top level, where the Blarney stone was. I could see two men assisting people to kiss the stone.
As the queue got shorter and we approached the Stone, I wondered if the stone was sprayed with some sort of disinfectant after each kisser. But as soon as I was in full view of what was going on, I realized that perhaps it wasn't too hygienic to go through with this. I began to squirm while a list of all the saliva-contracted diseases rushed though my brain: Hepatitis, cold sores, Herpes, Meningitis, Epstein-Barr, Mononucleosis, Flu, Polio.
It was too late to turn back now, it was my turn to pucker up. I approached the stone much like young Arthur must've approached the sword in his stone: puzzled. There was a man sitting on the floor, his feet dangling off a ledge. That was the assistant. There was a space between the floor and the wall that looked down into the precipice that was the cliff below. It was in that tiny space that the Stone was, so you were supposed to lean backwards into the hole and kiss the stone. So with the help of the nice man hanging on to my waist, I was told to hang on to two iron railings and gently slide my bum backwards until I was able to reach the stone with my lips.
 I forgot all about the disease-ridden stone as soon as I was dangling upside down looking down into the abyss. I kissed the stone with a loud smack and was helped up by the assistant who boldly remarked in his awful Cork's accent "Ya enjoyed dat, didya?"
No one seems to really know how this bizarre custom came to be, but legend has it that an old witch was saved by one of the Kings of Munster from drowning and she rewarded him with a spell, that if he would kiss a stone on the castle top he would gain a speech that would win all to him.
Another legend tells of how the word ‘blarney’ entered the English language: during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the ruler of the castle, a McCarthy was required to surrender his castle as proof of loyalty. McCarthy said he’d be delighted to do so but every time it was time to give up his castle, he always came up with the perfect excuse. His excuses became so eloquent and frequent that when the Queen heard of this, she exclaimed “Odds bodkins, more Blarney talk!” Thus the word blarney came to signify the ability to coax with fair speech without giving offense. In other words: a smooth talker. continue...
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