The image below does not represent some form of torture, but an experience for which visitors willingly climb up many steps to the roof and Blarney Castle in county Cork and pay for the privilege of lying backwards over the roof of the castle. This is known as kissing the Blarney Stone, a ritual which generates the castle many thousands of dollars in revenue.

Visitors go through this ritual because kissing the stone is a long standing tradition, intended to confer a magical eloquence on the individual concerned. The stone is set in the wall, below the castle battlements. Kissing the stone entails the visitor being grasped by the feet and suspended backwards under the parapet.

If this attraction was in the U.K. the jobsworths of Health and Safety would have killed this bit of lucrative fun off long ago!

Labels: Ireland

posted by Nigel Cole @ 12:30 PM