Everyday Canvas

The Blarney Stone

Prompt: Are you participating/ hosting/ or preparing something on March 17th aka St. Paddy's Day? If you share your plans; if not, maybe discuss something you may not have known from the links.
http://www.gpb.org/education/origins-of-st-patricks-day
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saint-Patricks-Day

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We are not attending a dinner that we were invited to on St. Paddy’s, but I have been celebrating Ireland in my own way.

Fact is, I am now reading The Great Book of Ireland, by Bill O’Neill, an author who has many other trivia books, but this book is more than trivia. It has excellent facts in it, some of which I had no idea.

I can’t give away everything in the book, but I’ll talk about one that may be entertaining. The Blarney Stone, which I bet anyone who’s been to Ireland and isn’t afraid of heights must have tried to kiss it.

There are many stories or legends about how the stone ended up where it is, in a wall in The Blarney Castle, which is located just outside of Cork, Ireland. One of the legends is that it was brought there during the Crusades; another is, it is of the same rock in Stonehenge.

The legend I like the most dates back to 1440s when the Blarney castle’s builder Cormac Laidir MacCarthy was involved in a lawsuit. For good luck, he asked the Irish goddess of love and beauty Cliodhna, who told Cormac to kiss the stone before heading out to court. After winning the case, Cormac installed the stone into a wall in the castle.

I like this story the best because of the fantasy in it.

Yet, there’s another story about Cormac when Queen Elizabeth I wanted to strip him of his land rights. Cormac wasn’t an eloquent speaker. During his travels, a woman told him to kiss the stone. Cormac did that and was able to persuade the queen to let him keep his land.

The second story about the same man has probably more truth to it, but I still like the one with the love goddess.

By the way, “Kiss me, I’m Irish” comes from the Blarney Stone.