Blarney Castle
Blarney Castle ( Irish Caisleán na Blarnan ) is located in the Irish village of Blarney ( An Bhlarna ) nine kilometers north of the city of Cork .
history
The original wooden castle at this location was built in the 10th century, but was replaced by a stone building in 1210. After the destruction, the King of Munster , Dermot McCarthy, had it restored as a family seat. The keep was preserved from this building .
Oliver Cromwell's troops captured the castle in 1646 using cannons , but had to find that the residents had fled through three long tunnels with all their valuable objects. Fifteen years later, when Charles II ascended the throne of England , the McCarthy family repossessed the castle.
In 1690 all Irish nobles were expropriated and disempowered. The McCarthys were forced to leave Blarney Castle. In 1703 the governor of Cork , Sir James Jefferyes, acquired the property.
The stone of fluency
- see also main article Cliodhna
On the outside of the upper battlements , the is the keep stone of eloquence : (English Stone of Eloquence , supposedly half of) Stone of Scone , the Crusaders from the Holy Land brought and on which the Scottish kings were henceforth crowned. Cormac McCarthy received it from Robert the Bruce in 1314 for his loyal service at the Battle of Bannockburn . According to legend, whoever kisses the Blarney Stone gains the gift of free speech. For the Irish and the British, the term Blarney is synonymous with empty phrases or rash talk in everyday life . The colloquial "Blabla", which is used in German, is not based on the word Blarney.
A legend claims that Queen Elizabeth I personally coined this phrase. After endless excuses by Cormac Teige McCarthy during the negotiations about the handover of the castle, the Queen is said to have exclaimed while reading the minutes that it was all Blarney.
Todays use
Blarney Castle is now one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland due to its popularity in the English speaking world . Every year tens of thousands kiss the stone of fluency , and you have to lean upside down over the parapet. The entire village of Blarney around the castle is completely tourism-oriented. Blarney Castle itself is surrounded by gardens, where the possibilities remarkable rock formations are located, such as the Druids Circle (English: Druid's Circle ), the witches' cave (English: Witch's Cave ) and the desire stairs (English: Wishing Steps ). The streams around the castle are littered with penny coins.
literature
- Mark Wycliffe Samuel, Kate Hamlyn: Blarney Castle. Its history, development and purpose . Cork University Press, Cork 2007, ISBN 978-1-85918-411-0 .
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 55 ′ 44 ″ N , 8 ° 34 ′ 15 ″ W.