Kissing the Blarney Stone

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6520, 8 April 1931, Page 12

Kissing the Blarney Stone

WITH H. V. MORTON IN IRELAND Mr. H. V. Morton, as was expected of him, has gone “In Search of Ireland,” and has. written a book about that country in his own inimitable, casual and entertaining fashion. He made a complete tour of the island in a motor car, and although at the outset ho may not have been as strongly fortified with local history as he was upon his earlier quests of England and Scotland, this is all in favour of the reader, who shares in the surprises experienced by the narrator. Mr. Morton encountered much in the course of his journeyings that was enchanting, and much that w-as eerie, including a wake in Mayo. He fell in love with Kerry and Connemara, and often he dwelt long enough in the countryside to grow to know the people well, and to learn the meaning of their quaint manners and customs. Mr. Morton formed the impression that even the poorest Irish peasant had a touch of the aristocrat in him. He was attracted by the mystery rather than the humour of the village-folk. Some of the legends that he heard captivated him, and he retells them with relish. Indeed, he says that there is need of an Irish Walter Scott. Mr. Morton did not go to Ireland with a virgin mind. He gives a list of the books that he read either before or during the journey. They deal with almost every aspect of Irish life at almost every stage of history. The reader enjoys the advantages of this careful preparation. Mr. Morton, of course, kissed the Blarney Stone. “Kissing the Blarney Stone is a difficult and a not too pleasant act,” he writes. “It is hard to discover why generations of travellers have endured it, and still more difficult to know why that particular stone, 150 ft. above the ground level, achieved its world-wide fame. The dictionary says that blarney is ‘to talk or beguile with agreeable talk.’ When the lift boy in the hotel heard that I had kissed the Blarney Stone he said, with a grin: ‘Och, sur, and now all the young ladies’ll be afther ye . . . .’ This represents the cynical local tradition that the Blarney Stone imparts the power of such picturesque deception to the tongue of a man that no woman can resist him. ... I have formed no ideas on it! Third Castle on Site.

“The village of Blarney lies five miles to the north-west of Cork. In the middle of a pretty wood rise the ruins of Blarney Castle, with rooks cawing round them, moss growing over them, and damp green slime in the dungeons. It is the third castle built on that site. The first was a wooden fortress erected in remote times by Dermot M’Carthy, King of South Munster; the second was built about A.D. 1200, and the present tattered shell was constructed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was the strongest castle in that part of Ireland. In it lived the younger branch of the princely M’Cartkys, lords of Muskerry, barons of Blarney, and earls of Clanearthy. “The word ‘blarney’ entered the language, so they say, when Dermot M’Carthy was required to surrender the fortress to Queen Elizabeth as a proof of his loyalty-. He said that he would be delighted to do so, but —something always happened at the last moment to prevent the surrender! His excuses became so frequent, and were so plausible, that the Lord President, Sir George Carcw, who was demanding the castle in the name of the Queen, became a joke. Queen Elizabeth (probably) said, when these excuses were repeated to her, ‘Ods Bodkins, more Blarney talk!’ In any event, the term ‘blarney’ invaded the English language, meaning plausible wheedling. The Kissing Stone

‘ ‘ The first question you ask when y-ou enter Blarney Castle is, ‘Where’s tnc Blarney Stone?’ A caretaker points skyward to the turret of the Donjon. You see, 150 ft. from the earth, and on the outside of the walls, a large brown stone. Your enthusiasm began to wane! You go round and round a spiral staircase and emerge on the turret. In the old days people who kissed the Blarney Stone were hung by the heels over the edge of the parapet. One day a pilgrim broke from the grasp of his friends, and went hurtling into space, and since that time the Blarney Stone has been approached by a different method.

“You sit down with your back to a sheer drop of 150 ft. Your guide then sits on your legs, holds your feet, and tells you to lie back over the drop and to grasp two iron hand rails. You are then lying flat on your back with half of your body ready for eternity-. Bywriggling down and closing y-our eyes to shut out the distant inverted landscape, you bring yourself to kiss the base of the stone. You then lever yourself up from the abyss; shout, ‘Are you sure you’ve got me?’ and sit up and say, ‘Well, I did it.’ “How did the custom originate? No one knows. It is the kind of thing a caretaker with a sound knowledge of psychology might invent in a moment of inspiration. Kissing the Blarney Stone was unknown in the 18th century. Since then, I discover there have been many Blarney Stones. There is, in fact, a dispute over the position of the original rock of Blarney-. It is discouraging to learn this after you have endured the ordeal!

“ ‘And what,’ you say to the guide as you wind downwards to earth through the turret, ‘will the Blarney Stone do for me?’ He then recites, in the stale tomes employed by guides who spend their lives answering the same question, these lines by Father Prout:— 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.

“You go thoughtfully away, comforted by the thought that it is all blarney! ”