My experience with Ireland’s legendary kissing stone

blarney castle cork ireland travel guide bitter bitch

One of the only things I remember about history was the tale of the Blarney Stone, and even that is foggy at best. So for those of you that need a refresher, it goes something like this: there’s a magical stone built into a castle that brings eloquence to those that kiss it. Lucky for me, I never needed any help running my mouth, but for 400,000 other people per year, that sounds like a lot of gab.

The stone is said to give the ability to deceive without offending.

The truth is no one really knows where the stone came from or where the story began. Allegedly the makeup of the stone is the exact same as Stonehenge, which is believed to date back to 3000 BC. Although the name “blarney” didn’t show up until the 16th century, the legend of the stone is much older. The oldest story is one that details it as the pillow of Jacob, like from the Book of Genesis, although I have my doubts. Another is that it was gifted to Cormac McCarthy by Robert the Bruce in 1314, originally a piece of the Stone of Scone. I’ve never been gifted a piece of limestone weighing several tons, but I guess it’s possible. Regardless of where the stone came from, or how that particular stone was chosen to be “The Stone”, in the last hundred years it has driven thousands of superstitious people to Blarney Castle for a chance at a kiss, and I happened to be one of them.

When I visited Blarney Castle, it was the beginning of July on a Tuesday. There was certainly people there, but the grounds weren’t overrun as I’d expected. The Blarney Stone is located at the top of the castle on the perimeter wall near the end of the tour. I was extremely lucky in that there was only about 15-20 people in line ahead of me. From my understanding, the line can get up to a couple hours wait, and considering the lower ceilings, stank smells, and incredibly tight staircase, I can honestly say I’d rather die than wait two hours in those conditions. However, once on top, the views from the parapet are incredible, and you can see for miles. It would’ve been very impressive five hundred years ago when neighboring buildings didn’t reach 20 feet tall.

I’m confident I still got piss on me somehow.

Once I got near the front of the line, the entire thing became a hell of a lot less whimsical. The stone in question is hanging off the bottom of the parapet opposite a huge gap. The wall is separated from the bottom stone by at least a foot, closer to two, enough for a large man to sit in between. There are bars under the stone for the hang-man’s feet as well as two bars pointing up, meant to be held onto by the kisser. The closer I got, the bigger the gap looked. Once there, they had me lay down on the small of my back and reach out toward the bars, which I could barely touch. Then the hangman slid me backwards until my entire upper body was hanging off. But the real kicker wasn’t hanging off the rock five stories above the ground as I look down at the people below. No, the kicker is that I had to arch my back as far as it would go and use the handholds to pull my chest into the wall because the kissing stone is actually below the walkway stones. The blood rushed to my head immediately, and I could see how a smaller person might pass out and slide down through the bars and onto the ground 85 feet below. Ouch. Don’t worry though; no one’s fallen to their death kissing the stone. Yet.

I’ve done a lot of things in my life just for the honor of saying I did them and, this was no different. Although fairly quick, I found the experience to be rather stressful and uncomfortable. I am a 30-something woman, still healthy and in decent shape, and I can honestly say that I feel like I wouldn’t have been able to do this in another ten years. Glad to have gotten it over with, I traveled back to Vegas with a small sense of accomplishment, that is until I heard why you should NOT kiss the Blarney Stone. Why wouldn’t you kiss the stone? I mean when in Rome, right? Wrong. I don’t know what I thought teenagers in Cork did for fun, but I certainly never thought they climbed up 128 stone stairs in pitch black night to hang off the side of an ancient building just to piss on a “magical” stone. But I guess they do. The only solace I have is the knowledge that post Covidland, they spray the stone down with disinfectant in between each kisser. Nevertheless, I’m confident I still got piss on me somehow, some way. And to commemorate the moment, I paid another €10 for the picture in the gift shop.

If you’re interested in visiting the pissing kissing stone, you can find more information at Ancient Ireland.