"Bells of Tipperary"
~click icon for lyrics~

May you have the hindsight
to know where you've been;
the foresight to know
where you're going;
and the insight to know
when you're going too far!

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Kissing the Blarney stone is supposed to give the kisser the "gift of gab" ...the power of persuasive eloquence....also called "blarney". The Stone is set in the tower wall of the Blarney Castle, built in 1446 in southern Ireland.

Thousands of tourists a year visit the castle in order to kiss the Blarney Stone. It's not easy to reach the Stone, if you want to kiss it, you'll have to stretch and bend backward, held by the legs, head downwards, over the battlements.

A famous old song "The Groves of Blarney" says:

There is a stone there, whoever kisses;
Oh! 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.

It is not known how the legend of the Blarney Stone began; there has long been a belief in the magical power of stones in Ireland. One story tells of an old woman who cast a spell on the stone to reward a king who had saved her from drowning. Kissing the stone while under the spell gave the king the ability to speak sweetly and convincingly.

It is also said that the Blarney stone is Jacob's Pillow brought back from the Holy Land after the Crusades.

At one time, the castle was occupied by Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, who allegedly sent 4,000 Munster men to help Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn. According to legend, Robert the Bruce gave half of the Stone of Scone to McCarthy in gratitude, which was incorporated into the structure of Blarney Castle, becoming the Blarney Stone. MacCarthy, whose silvery tongued excuses enabled him to stay on terms with both sides without definitely committing himself to either, caused Queen Elizabeth to describe his talk as "all blarney".

"Baloney 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

"....it is not necessary for me to seek eloquence at Blarney....my natural gifts in that direction being sufficient, if not somewhat excessive."   George Bernard Shaw

"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.....that quality which is always called the Irish charm."   GK Chesterton, 1909

"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."   author unknown