As tourist icons go, Blarney castle did not disappoint. While the locals were surprised at the number of people, it seemed quite reasonable to me and at worst meant there was a bit of a line on the parapets. The castle does make for quite a lovely ruin as the wooden floors and ceilings have all collapsed but enough of the building was done in stone that it’s still widely accessible.
The castle itself is predominantly a keep. There is a curtain wall off to one side, but restrictions on approach are primarily a result of the hill that loops you around the castle offering multiple opportunities for defenders to shoot at you. The keep itself had a range of protective measures, from murder holes to arrow slits to small spiral staircases that in one case include a medieval security check point. From the history I read, it sounds as if the family had a tendency towards fratricide, so they weren’t necessarily being paranoid in building the defenses.
Considering I’m in political science/international relations I did kiss the stone. I figure my diplomacy and bluff skills could use all the help they could get. Supposedly Blarney got its meaning as a more refined version of B.S. because of an Irish lord that managed to effectively maintain a polite but non-committal stance towards England’s monarch of the time. Thus the applications to international relations were there from the start.
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