What do Mick Jagger, Winston Churchill, and my Mom all have in common? If you guessed they all kissed the Blarney Stone at some point in their lives, you’d be spot on. Blarney Castle regularly makes Ireland’s top ten places to visit list . Why? Because it’s the home of the stone that promises eloquence to everyone who is brave enough to plant a big smooch on a bit of grey castle rock, high in a tower, upsidedown and backwards of course.
Here’s a demo of the technique on a sunnier day. Note the stone kissing helper has a FIRM grasp on the kissers. 🙂
I haven’t been to Blarney, but I can tell you it would be on my top ten list for Ireland too. Who wouldn’t want to brave the twisty stone steps of a medieval tower and kiss a stone with a storied history all to receive the “gift of the gab”? I was actually a little surprised my mom had done the…er…deed, given her fear of heights, but then she was barely 19 at the time. Go, Mom!
A brief history of Blarney:
In 1446 the third castle was built by Dermot McCarthy, King of Munster of which the keep still remains standing.
The lower walls are fifteen feet, built with an angle tower by the McCarthys of Muskerry. It was subsequently occupied at one time by Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, who is said to have supplied four thousand men from Munster to supplement the forces of Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Legend has it that the latter king gave half of the Stone of Scone to McCarthy in gratitude. This, now known as the Blarney Stone, was incorporated in the battlements where it can now be kissed.
The Earl of Leicester was commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to take possession of the castle. Whenever he endeavoured to negotiate the matter McCarthy always suggested a banquet or some other form of delay, so that when the queen asked for progress reports a long missive was sent, at the end of which the castle remained untaken. The queen was said to be so irritated that she remarked that the earl’s reports were all ‘Blarney’.
So let’s compare a little of that eloquence to see what the Blarney Stone wrought…
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. –SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
You wake up in the morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, ‘Mick, it’s time to get yourself a new spoon.’ And you do. –MICK JAGGER
Sometimes you’re the only one who can be your children’s advocate. No one knows them better than you. –MOM
And a couple more…
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. –SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL
Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and fame…ooh, ooh… –MICK JAGGER, Sympathy for the Devil
If you just picked up all the clothes on this floor, you could actually find something in your room. –MOM
Though the Stones are one of my favorite bands, and you can’t go wrong with Mom’s advice, I think I will give the oratory nod to Sir Winston Churchill, mainly for this epic speech rallying England in the dark days of WWII:
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
However, the true measure of Blarney can be summed up in this simple comparison:
“The difference between ‘blarney’ and ‘baloney’:
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.”
Ah, yes…and if you say it with an Irish lilt, well…
Do YOU have the gift of the gab when you need it most? Anyone kissed the Blarney Stone and lived to tell about it? HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY, EVERYONE!!
(all photos and vid courtesy Blarney Castle’s really informative and fun website. Quotes from BrainyQuote and Greatest Winston Churchill Quotes, oh and Mom herself 🙂 )
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