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Kissing the Blarney Stone

Standing in a storybook meadow is that shrine to Irish eloquence, Blarney Castle. And hanging under a turret 120 feet overhead, the magnet that drew you here: the fabled Blarney Stone.

Each year, thousands make the dizzying ascent up the winding castle stairs in hopes of laying lips on that most celebrated slab of medieval limestone. By so doing, they believe they’ll achieve the gracious gift of gab for which the Irish are most rightfully noted.

Determined to become a smooth talker, you join the never-ending line of tourists spiraling happily up to romance The Stone. You surrender your “buss ticket” and wait your turn. As you reach the head of the line, you forget the first thing you learned about kissing, which is to keep your eyes closed. So you look down. Eternity yawns. You begin to scream inwardly as two burly, bantering strangers slowly and deliberately lower you head first — bent backwards at the waist — into what seems like a bomb-bay door in the floor of the tower. You are soon in a totally helpless, awkward, upside-down position from which you can barely protrude your desperately puckered lips far enough to reach The Stone’s smooth, hard bottom.

You realize The Stone hasn’t budged since it was set into the tower in 1446. Nonetheless, you feel a hammering heartbeat away from being the first pilgrim to slip the grips of your two new best friends and do a screaming, howling, twelve-and-a-half-turn backward flip through the roof of the Blarney Castle Gift Shop.

But you don’t. With a resounding smack you pay affectionate tribute to one of Ireland’s oldest and most colorful traditions. You receive your official Certificate as a Master of Blarney. The attendant wipes your kiss away and welcomes the next lucky visitor.

Was it fun? It was. Are you glad you made the journey? You are. Will you remember it always? You will. For the rest of your days, whenever the Blarney Stone is mentioned, you can say proudly and with all the clever, charming eloquence of your hard-earned new status, “Been there! Kissed that!”