A Treacherous Trip to the Top of the Tallest Tower

Today I visited Blarney Castle and saw the Blarney Stone.

For those of you to whom that means nothing, let me explain:  the Blarney Stone is renowned for providing eloquence to those that kiss it, which is no feat.  For one thing, the visitor must brave the ticket booth (ISIC cards give a discount of 2 euros!), then the hoardes of high school students who happen to be in Ireland on some sort of band retreat and form a horrendous queue; then comes the worst part of all, the dreaded tower stairs.  I think there were 104 of them, these awful, steep, winding, dark, stone, uneven, narrow stairs, with only a rope to serve as a handrail.  They did not meet North Carolina’s State Fire Code and were, in fact, so treacherous and frightening that I had to pause in the climb no less than twice to regain my courage (ducking into little side rooms along the way), and even then when I got to the top my heart was beating a little faster than normal and my hands were shaking.  No, I’m not kidding.  And I don’t consider myself especially claustrophobic, and fear of heights hasn’t much to do with it because I couldn’t see outside.  I think I’m just afraid of going up dark, steep, narrow, uneven, etc. winding stairs.  (Going down, on the other hand, wasn’t so bad.  I think the railing made all the difference.)  The final challenge is to bend over backwards, literally, and kiss the stone. 

I didn’t do that.  I use too many words as it is, so I took a hint from George Bernard Shaw and opted out.  But I’ve seen it done, I took a picture of someone doing it (with their camera, not mine), and I’ve had my picture taken at the place of doing.  That’s good enough for me.

Boy, but is Cork full of superstition!  First, there’s that Blarney Stone thing (and, may I add that if that thing does give eloquence, the proof comes sometime later.  I heard one conversation that ran something like this:  Student A:  “Did you kiss the stone?”  Student B:  “Dude, yeah.”  It’s magic, I tell you!); then there are these wishing steps, which if you go up and down them with your eyes closed and thinking only of your wish, then it’ll come true in the next year.  Finally, there’s this Claddagh ring that you wear one way if single and another if “taken,” and the single wearers are guaranteed to find love.  Presh.

Apart from the often-silly superstitions, Cork is a far more agreeable city than Dublin, but far less agreeable than Galway.  What’s more, I have met a group of students from a college in Iowa who are here in Cork for their spring break on a mission trip with their Christian campus group!  They found me last night sitting in the lounge doing not much of anything; we entered into conversation first, then cards.  The poor things were jetlagged to the max, having gotten two hours of sleep in 48 hours of time–but, amazingly enough, they weren’t grumpy, and we played cards until around ten o’clock.  Even I was tired by then; this walking around everywhere is a sure-fire way to get a good night’s sleep!