Blarney Castle

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Blarney Castle

Postby dgraves » Mon Nov 20, 2006 10:46 pm

August 2006

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Kissing the Blarney Stone

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This is how they used to dangle you from the tower!! No grids to catch you below!
(They'd caught a wee little man to torture in this photo. :lol: :lol: I'm not very tall, but they had to hold on to my shins...not my ankles :lol: )

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Postby ionnsaigh » Fri May 11, 2007 10:26 am

Hate to tell a tale, however I once knew a guy from Blarney who informed that the locals urinate on the stone at night, saying the English kiss what the Irish piss.
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Postby dgraves » Sat May 12, 2007 7:01 pm

Puckering up to kiss the Blarney Stone

By KEN HOFFMAN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle


"I was up late one night watching old Bandstand videos on YouTube.com when I received a Travel Bargain alert:

Houston to Dublin, round trip, $469 on Delta Airlines. Wow!

Plus, there are no convenient direct flights from Houston. So Ireland is usually a separate visit all on its own.

But for $469, pucker up, baby, I'm going to kiss the Blarney Stone."


"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 Parliament."

FRANCIS SYLVESTER MAHONY

Mahony ... rhymes with baloney.

Many people think you get good luck — the luck o' the Irish — when you kiss the Blarney Stone.

But what you supposedly get — and pay 8 euros for — is the convincing power of eloquence. The gift of gab. A good line of bull...

Even in winter, you'll break a sweat climbing lots of narrow twisting stairs to romance the stone. It's definitely one of those experiences that's more fun to tell about later...

"From the train station in Cork, you grab a bus for a 20-minute ride to Blarney Castle. There's a lot of blarney about the origins of the Blarney Stone. The stone was set in the tower of Blarney Castle by Cormac Teige McCarthy, the keeper of the castle, in 1446.

Some say the stone is part of the Stone of Scone. There's some who say the stone was once used as a pillow by Jacob. Others say the stone was used as a pillow by St. Columba as he lay dying. Many more stories are attached to biblical beginnings, by people who had a weird concept of what makes a good pillow.

Here's the story of the connection between the Blarney Stone and the art of BS'ing.

Queen Elizabeth I demanded that the owner hand over the keys to the castle as a show of loyalty. He said he'd be happy to do it, but every time closing day came, he would have a different excuse.

The queen grew tired of his stalling and hollered "more Blarney talk!"

Since then, when someone says you're full of Blarney, they're saying you're full of it, all right.

Blarney Castle stands 90 feet tall, and at the very top, on what would be the roof, is the Blarney Stone. That's where the fun begins.

The Blarney Stone isn't plastered on a wall like the Mona Lisa, easy to smooch and be on your way.

No, the Blarney Stone is tucked inside the wall, near the floor, like an upside-down windowsill.

You're going to have to work if you want to kiss it.

First of all, do you really want to put your mouth on Ireland's most famous tourist attraction? In this case, you do know where it's been. Millions of tourists, including Winston Churchill, several American presidents and Hollywood stars like Michael Jackson have planted their lips on the Blarney Stone.

Still want to kiss it?

There's another tasty bit of lore about the Blarney Stone. After closing each night, castle workers and local residents, fortified by stout Irish beer, line up to pee on the Blarney Stone.

They'll get a good laugh the next day when silly tourists pay money to huff and puff up nine flights of stairs to kiss what to them is the world's most famous urinal.

I don't know which thought is more upsetting, the bit about local drunks or Michael Jackson. Yuck.

Both are deal-breakers.

Still want to kiss it?

I did...

Over on the side, a castle employee helps you lie on your back, grab metal handrails and tilt your head down and back to kiss the stone, which is embedded inside a wall. All the time he is holding your legs so you don't take a header.

It's a weird feeling, being held upside down by a total stranger so you can kiss a slobbered stone.

Take your hat off first. The Blarney Stone loses more hats in the wind than the roller coaster at Six Flags.

The castle employee has a tip jar.

Yeah, right ... after what you did on the Blarney Stone the night before? I don't think so."

ken.hoffman@chron.com
:lol: :lol:


Ionnsaigh,

My daughter wasn't turned away by the local 'tales' as you can see by the picture above..neither are millions of others.

I hadn't heard the local lore when I dangled in the tower to kiss the stone, but I'd have done the rediculous, anyway :lol:
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Postby ionnsaigh » Tue May 15, 2007 9:04 am

Good fur you an daughter tae
tae kiss the slab tae get the gab
despite the snot grog pongy pish
a Celtic song an Irish wish

Blue big stone a pillow fur mae heid
make me say admire my deed
fill mae mind wae words that rhyme
hear the bells go chime chime chime
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