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Blarney Castle
One of the most popular tourist destinations in Ireland would be the Blarney
Castle, located in Blarney near Cork City. The Blarney Castle attracts thousands
of visitors each month and is famous worldwide for the kissing of the Blarney
Stone, locally known as the Stone of Eloquence.
The History of Blarney Castle
Constructed before 1200 AD the Blarney Castle was a wooden structure but had been reconstructed in stone by 1210 AD later to be demolished for the need of its stone. By 1446 the King of Munster, Dermot McCarthy, decided to rebuilt the castle back to its formal glory and is what you can see today when you visit the Blarney Castle. A gold plate had been presented to the King who had it attached to main battlement of the Castle, where now the famous Blarney Stone can be located.
After sometime Queen Elizabeth ordered the Earl of Leicester to take control of the castle but negotiations with the McCarthy’s was not so straight forward as they played every type of delay on the negations. When Queen Elizabeth called on the Earl of Leicester to report on the progress of the negotiations she dismissed his excuses by calling them “Blarney” and in the end the Castle was never taken over by her.
Blarney Castle comes under attack
Some years later the Castle came under attack by a General called Lord Broghill who succeeded in breaking through the tower walls but discovered that everyone had escaped by using underground caves, named the Badger caves. Lord Broghill and his men had discovered that the most valuable piece in the castle, the gold plate, had been earlier removed by those who had fled the castle. It was thought the valuable gold plate had been thrown into the lake beside the Blarney castle and an attempt was made to drain the water from the lake which ended up in a costly failure.
Castle is purchased
By 1688, the Governor of Cork, Sir James St. John Jefferyes, purchased the castle and who added extra buildings along with gardens that surrounds the castle. The Jefferyes family had married into the Colthurst family who had constructed a new castle in the south section of the property that became the family home, which still is today.
Anyone visiting Ireland should not pass up the chance to see the Blarney Castle which is a magically place rich with Irish history and Irish culture but more importantly everyone needs to kiss the Blarney Stone of such a great Irish castle in Ireland.
Read more on the history of castles in ireland.