Blarney Castle and Gardens
| Address: | Monacnapa, Blarney |
Situated 8 km from Cork City, this historic castle is most famous for its stone, which has the traditional power of conferring eloquence on all who kiss it. Blarney Castle is the third structure to have been erected on this site. In the tenth century there was a wooden hunting lodge here.
Around 1210 this was replaced by a stone structure with its entrance some twenty feet above the ground on the north face. It was subsequently occupied at one time by Cormac McCarthy, King of Munster, who is said to have supplied four thousand men from Munster to supplement the forces of Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Legend has it that the latter king gave half of the Stone of Scone to McCarthy in gratitude. This, now known as the Blarney Stone, was incorporated in the battlements where it can now be kissed.
This building was demolished for foundations of the third castle built by Dermot MacCarthy in 1446. it is a tower house, or fortress residence of this that we know today as Blarney Castle.