Blarney Castle

Near the Western coast of Ireland, close to Cork, lies one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland: Blarney Castle. The building stems from the 10th century and was captured by Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century, but it survived pretty well as you can see in the pictures. It is surrounded by gardens and streams, and the closest village went full tourism (as you can imagine with tens of thousands of people visiting the place yearly).

The half-ruinous keep overlooks the region; notable is also the watch tower whose design for some reason reminded me of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim ... don't ask. Passing the gardens, we saw the Druid's Circle, the Witch's Cave (spooky, below a waterfall and especially gloomy in the dark) and a poison garden where they grew some castor-oil plants (used since ancient Roman times up until fascism for torture by inducing diarrhea) and weed ... of course only for medical purposes, yeah, sure. ;) Actually, they had built cages around the plants so nobody could touch them ... maybe a good idea with so many tourists around.

A special feat were the long stone tunnels which formed an elaborate system under the earth and allowed the ruling family to escape when Cromwell and his troops laid siege to the castle using cannons. It was an adventure to explore the tunnels, one ended in a cave that was open upwards and probably close to a secret trap door into the castle. Dungeon-crawling in real life? Check. Done.

Taking the narrow winded stairs (used for combatting enemies one by one), we climbed on top of the main keep and got this panoramic view of the surrounding area including the adjacent village where our bus was waiting for us (with the driver probably sipping a beer). The poison gardens were close the the castle on the other side. Close to the walls, there were some holes (today barred with iron rods) that would have been used to counter sieges with bows and arrows, crossbows, stones and muskets (maybe even oil).

The ultimate attraction was this: The Gift of the Gab. The sandstone at this place is said to have been transported from the Holy Land by crusaders. Kissing it (as tens of thousands of others did before you, ew) is supposed to give you seven years of extreme eloquence. In today's language, "blarney" is used to describe rubbish, nonsense or gibberish. Allegedly, Elisabeth I coined this term ... anyway, I feel like I have profitted very much from my travels around Ireland. Maybe there is something to this story? Or is it just my studies?

Next up, we will stay around the Western coast, but change to a natural site ...