The Blarney Stone

A limestone block set into the battlements at Blarney Castle near Cork, Ireland, which visitors kiss in the belief that it gives them a gift for persuasive speech.

The Blarney Stone is a Carboniferous limestone block built into the castle battlements at Blarney, about 8 kilometres from Cork. Wikipedia says it was set into a castle tower in 1446 and that, by legend, a kiss on it grants "the gift of the gab". The castle draws visitors from around the world to do exactly that. Blarney Castle's own site says the word blarney, for charming talk that leads you astray, caught on in the 16th century, when the MacCarthy of the time was stalling the demands of Elizabeth I.

The custom was in print in R. Shelton Mackenzie's Bits of Blarney, copyright 1854. Mackenzie describes the ritual as a single kiss on the rock, after which the kisser can flatter women, and men too, without being caught at it.

In 2014 The Guardian reported that researchers at Glasgow University had found the stone to be entirely Irish. Texas Tech University has its own claimed piece. The university says it announced the find on St. Patrick's Day 1939, and by its telling of the legend, petroleum engineers on a field trip found the rock and tests matched it to the original. The rock rests on a stand outside the old Electrical Engineering Building, and seniors who kiss it at graduation are said to gain eloquence.