The
Irish are impressively good at stacking rocks. Fences, barns, forts, and
especially castles showcase this talent over the ages. Fences divide the
countryside into a gridded pattern of pastures and line most roadways. Forts
that are older than European settlement of America still stand solid guard in
Southwestern Ireland. Similarly, castle ruins can be found dotted along the
rugged coast and other strategic locations inland. Even modern buildings and
houses make significant use of rocks and for good reason—they are abundantly everywhere.
We passed by
approximately two or three castles each day. Some are in partial ruin, on
others the stonework remains well preserved, and a small number are restored
with replicate woodwork and furnishings. Many are owned privately or by the
government and charge admission, but yet a good number remain neglected relics
of history, merely ivy covered obstacles in the middle of quiet cow pastures.
The Irish
castle most familiar to Americans is Blarney Castle, made famous for its revered
Blarney Stone and a popular pilgrimage spot for those yearning to lay a smooch
on it in hopes they will be given the “gift of gab,” or “blarney” as some call
it. What makes this particular stone magical, you might be wondering?
Legend has
it the builder of Blarney Castle, Cormac MacCarthy, found himself on the wrong
end of a lawsuit. He appealed to Clíodhna, a goddess in Irish mythology, for advice on how best to plead
his defense. She instructed him to kiss the first stone he came upon during his
travels to the court. He did this and as a result was able to plead his case
with great eloquence, and of course, he won. As a result, legend has it that
the Blarney Stone is able to impart “the ability to deceive without offending,”
or in shorthand, the gift of eloquent speaking. He then incorporated the special
stone into the castle structure. Of course this is only one of the many
explanations behind the myth of the Blarney Stone. People from around the world, including many politicians seeking
the power of persuasion and great oratory skills, have made the climb to kiss
the stone (most notably Winston Churchill).
As
a recent law graduate, it would have been a blunder to pass up this opportunity
to endow myself with an eloquent tongue so I might find similar luck and skill
as Mr. MacCarthy when in the courtroom. We drove to Cork to find this infamous bluestone.
The Blarney Castle is one of the taller castles we saw and 131 steps up the
tight spiral staircases takes you to where the stone is located on the top rim
of the castle, cemented into the base of the battlements.
Because it
is perched in a precarious location, kissing it is an exercise in upper body
flexibility. After a short wait in line you are guided by the grey haired attendant
to lay on your back, grab a steel support bar with each fist, arc your back
over the two-foot gap opening, and then lean back far enough to get your head
low enough to kiss the stone. Meanwhile, the attendant is there to grab your jacket
or legs should you start to slip backward and through the gap and plummet to
the ground below. They hardly give you enough time for a peck before you are
being pulled back up and shooed off to keep the line moving.
I can’t say
I felt any different after my brief moment with the stone. I still stumble over
my words, but hold out hope that in those moments of greatest need Clíodhna will bestow me with a
little bit of that Blarney magic. At least she had better, or I fear I fell for
the greatest tourist scam in all of Ireland.
Over the
ages blarney has also developed into a useful adjective to describe a certain
form of baloney, and I don’t mean the good stuff found at the New Albin Meat
Market. An Irish
politician described it best when he said, “Blarney is something more than mere
flattery. It is flattery sweetened by humour and flavoured by wit.” A plaque at
the castle gave a nice example. “Baloney is when you tell a 50 year old woman
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.” Most Irish are naturally skilled
in the latter.
Many of the castles have a similar layout. Tight spiral staircases
stake out each corner. The stone slabs used to construct
the steps are well worn from centuries of travel by knights, princesses, and
more recently, Nike-clad American tourists. In the corners on various levels
are the bedrooms while the center of the castle is reserved for the banquet
hall. The roof is designed with castle defenses in mind. The more “luxurious” castles,
like Blarney Castle, incorporated fancy waste disposal systems comprised of
special, slanted windows on the downwind side—out of which one could do their
business and expedite its deposit outside. Like most castles in Ireland, only
the resilient stone structure remains and all wood components have long ago
rotted away.
As an
amateur in castle architecture, I suggest that once you have seen one you have
pretty much seen them all. I often wondered what the locals think of all these picture-happy
tourists stopping to take photos of castles along the roads or in a farmer’s
back 40. To them I suspect these castles are about as commonplace as traditional
dairy barns with gambrel roofs in the Upper Midwest. I might be exaggerating a
little bit, but the day isn’t far off when that might be true.
I can
imagine that any season now we will start to see busloads of Japanese, German, and
New York City tourists kicking up a cloud of dust down Prairie Ridge Road or
slowing down traffic on Highway 44 while they snap pictures from the side of
the road and pay to take tours of the last of these wooden relics from an
earlier farming era. First we will wonder with amusement and a little annoyance
what all of the commotion is about, but after the dust settles we will eventually
come to the difficult realization it is already too late and another chapter of
our agricultural heritage will be over and in the books—just another nostalgic attraction
exhibiting “the way things used to be.”
But let’s
hope that’s all just a bunch of blarney.
