Blarney Stone - Legend

Legend

It is claimed that the synonymy of "blarney" with "empty flattery" or "beguiling talk" derives from one of two sources. One story involves the goddess Clíodhna and Cormac Laidir MacCarthy (see "Origins" above). Another suggests that Queen Elizabeth I, while requesting an oath of loyalty to retain occupancy of land, received responses from Cormac Teige McCarthy, the Lord of Blarney, which amounted to subtle diplomacy, and promised loyalty to the Queen without "giving in." Elizabeth proclaimed that McCarthy was giving her "(a lot of) blarney," thus apparently giving rise to the legend.

'Tis there's the stone that whoever kisses

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."

Echoing the supposed power of the stone, an Irish bard of the early 19th century, Francis Sylvester Mahony, added a number of (humorous) lines to Richard Milliken's "The Groves of Blarney" (right).

According to tradition at Texas Tech University, a stone fragment on display since 1939 outside the old Electrical Engineering Building is a missing piece of the Blarney Stone. How this was determined is unknown.