In the year 1602, when the Spaniards were inciting the Irish chieftains to harass the English authorities, Cormac MacCarthy held, among other dependencies, the castle of Blarney, and had concluded an armistice with the Lord-President on condition of surrendering this fort to an English garrison. Day after day did his lordship look for the fulfilment of the compact, while the Irish Pozzo di Borgo, as loath to part with his stronghold as Russia to relinquish the Dardanelles, kept protocolizing with soft promises and delusive delays, until at last Carew became the laughing-stock of Elizabeth’s ministers, and Blarney talk proverbial.
A popular tradition attributes to the Blarney Stone the power of endowing whoever kisses it with the sweet, persuasive, wheedling eloquence so perceptible in the language of the Cork people, and which is generally termed Blarney. This is the true meaning of the word, and not, as some writers have supposed, a faculty of deviating from veracity with an unblushing countenance whenever it may be convenient. The curious traveller will seek in vain the real stone, unless he allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle, when he will discover cover it about twenty feet from the top, with the inscription—Cormac MacCarthy fortis me fieri fecit, A.D. 1446.
As the kissing of this would be somewhat difficult, the candidate for Blarney honors will be glad to know that at the summit, and within easy access, is another real stone, bearing the date of 1703. A song published in the “Reliques of Father Prout” contains an allusion to this marvellous relic:
“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