Birthdays and Blarney

How many people can say that they had the opportunity to spend their 21st birthday in Ireland? Well I can! If you know someone else who has, don't tell me, I want to feel special. I'm so thankful to all of the wonderful people who made my birthday great, like my family and friends back home and my new friends here in Ireland. It was truly an experience I will never forget.

I decided that for my birthday I wanted to go on a day trip to somewhere in Ireland and after much planning (about 2 seconds worth) I realized that I had yet to kiss the Blarney Stone. So a few of us booked our tickets and prepared for the insanely early start we would have that day (it took a lot of preparing and we still left late).

Now I didn't take pictures on the bus ride up because I was pretty enthralled in my book and it was still dark (people really shouldn't wake up before the sun does) but our first stop was the Rock of Cashel and I certainly made up for the original lack of pictures. Unfortunately there was scaffolding on the outside of the building as one of the chapels is under construction but the inside is just as beautiful and spooky as ever.

A gigantic spooky wall

I've noticed that no matter where you go in Ireland, there is probably a cemetery there.

Legend has it that The Rock of Cashel originated in the Devil's Bit mountain, when St. Patrick (who brought christianity to Ireland) banished Satan from a cave. Satan then proceeded to bite off the top of a mountain (hence the name Devil's Bit)  and drop it onto St. Patrick who didn't get squished because that wouldn't be a very good story.

Next we got our chance to visit Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone, which is supposed to give anyone who kisses it the gift of gab and seven years of good luck. As we climbed what I imagine to be the smallest/longest staircase ever, we met a couple of guys from Perth who enjoyed scoffing at our American accents and informing us of how different Australia and America is. It was really very educational, and while they spent a lot of time laughing at the "odd" things Americans do, they spent an equal amount of time deriding the British, which everyone seems to enjoy here. 

 

The very beginning of the stair case. It only got smaller.

 Kissing the Blarney Stone sounds easy enough until you get there on a saturday and have to fight off annoying tourists (other than myself of course) to climb the ridiculously long and tiny winding staircase to reach the top, and then hang over the edge of the castle, backwards, to kiss a stone built into the wall about 4 feet below where you are laying down. If you skipped over a bit of that run on sentence, I had to HANG OVER THE EDGE. I'm not scared of heights but I also had to put a lot of trust into the guy holding on to me and that's just not my thing.

"It's not that far down" - the man clutching me in case I fall to my death

There are several legends surrounding the origin of the Blarney Stone but my favorite is that there was once a witch who lived on Cormac McCarthy's land (he built the castle) and he once saved her from drowning. In gratitude the witch then devoted her life to McCarthy and watched over him and his family. One day she came across his son, shot dead from an enemy's arrow and she used the stone to bring him back to life (don't ask me how, it's magic)  and then enchanted the stone so that anyone who kisses it will be given the gift of eloquence to talk themselves out of trouble.

While we could have stayed all day in the castle grounds, we only had time to visit one more place, called the wishing steps. Apparently, if you walk down and back up the stairs (backwards) with your eyes closed, while thinking of nothing but your wish, it will come true in a day, a month, or a year. It is also important to include that all of this was told to me by my guide who also believes you should only cut your hair on a growing moon, so judge the accuracy of these myths yourself.

Picture of Kate walking up the steps (backwards) instead of me, because she looked a lot more confident than I did.

All in all it was a great birthday and I ended it the next day (my actual birthday) with a trip to my favorite pub, where the band sang me Happy Birthday and the bartender gave me a free beer that I didn't drink. As far as location, I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.

-Jen