myPics: Caisleán na Blarnan

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Irish for Blarney Castle, Caisleán na Blarnan is the partial ruin attraction in Co. Cork. 


With some accessible rooms and battlements, this building houses the noted Blarney Stone found among the machicolations of the castle. (Machicolations are floor openings in the upper levels of a battlement, through which objects are dropped on attackers at the base of a defensive wall.) This is why prior to the safeguards at the castle, kissing the Blarney Stone was performed with real risk to life and limb, as those wanting to make the kiss were held by the ankles and dangled upside down from the height to reach the stone.

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