Day 10: Cork (Corcaigh)

APRIL 13 - Eat a few croissants bought last night in the Polish restaurant. Off to Blarney Castle, about 30 min drive to the northeast of Cork.

Blarney Castle (ca. 1446) is of the ‘Tower House’ type, which were typically used in the 13-15th Century. It was originally home of the MacCarthy Clan.

Most of the windows are basically arrow slits. The exceptions are some of the bedrooms near the top of the structure.

At the top, where the Blarney Stone is. No line for it today. So what is it with this Blarney Stone? To kiss it you have to lay on the ground and lean down over the outside wall of the tower. I went ahead and did the position, just to see. The word ‘blarney’ means cheap talk, like gossip.

There are four stated origin legends for the stone:

It was brought from the Holy Land, and is the rock Jacob used as a pillow while he dreamed of the ladder.
A gift from a Scottish king to the MacCarthy clan for their help sending soldiers to fight the English.
One of the early MacCarthys saved a drowning witch, and in gratitude she told him there was a particular stone in his castle that would bring luck if he kissed it.
A daughter of a leading druid in the region fell in love with a chieftain who died in battle. She grieved over his fallen body and her tears mixed with his blood on a stone below, and somehow the magic of this sorrow was absorbed. This stone ended up being used in the castle.

The stone itself looks gray and featureless, and, as you can imagine, is highly polished through all the lip activity over the years.

The only way up and down in the castle are two narrow spiral staircases.

This is overall a really well defended castle. The sides are sloped just slightly outward at the base, so that objects thrown from the top would bounce out and hit attackers. There is also a murder hole above the only entrance, where boiling liquids or some other nasty stuff could be poured on assaulters.

The grounds around the castle are beautiful, made all the better by the sunny spring day we happened to be there.

First to the poison garden, which Odette had wanted to visit for some time. Not all of them are leafing out yet. The rhubarb is (shown), which I have never thought of as being poisonous (apparently the leaves are).

Looks like these cedar trees are all just branches from one original tree.

Upon returning to Cork, we stop by University College Cork, where they have a Ogam Stone exhibit. It happens to be commencement day.

Ogam stones were inscribed with the earliest known form of written language in Ireland, used in the 5th to 7th Century CE. They normally give clan or individual names. It is as it looks: a bunch of vertical or slanted lines. They occur in clusters of 1-5, engraved on either the left, right, or across the corner of the rock, representing in total 20 different letters.

To the Elizabeth Fort after this, built in about 1626. Not a great deal left of this building, except some older walls, with the remainder rebuilt in later years. This former defensive fort became infamous in the 1800’s as a women’s prison. Thousands of women from Ireland and England, guilty of crimes such as ‘stealing a piece of cloth’, or ‘unseemly behavior’, were condemned to two years in this facility. During this time, they were instructed to sew their own clothing in preparation for their eventual deportation to Australia. The sentence of seven years in the Australian penal colony was effectively for life, since it was nearly impossible for the released convicts to sort out a way to get home.

Such was life in Cork at the time that some women found staying in the prison easier than being out on the street. At least there was food and shelter. It was less clear how the average person took to being dumped at a holding facility in Australia or Van Dieman’s Land (Tasmania). The ‘lucky’ ones were married off and were able to leave for new homes (the ratio of men to women in 1800’s Australia was about 10:1).

As a side note, Cork, being the busiest port on the southern coast of Ireland, was also the main departure point for immigrants to the United States.

Also visit the English Market, which is really just a fancy farmer’s market in a big, slick building.

Late afternoon now, drive back to the Airbnb. Odette tries to make friends with the two kids living in the house we are renting the room from, but they are usually transfixed with video games.

Republic of Ireland