COULD THE BLARNEY stone have received the ultimate kiss of death?
The internationally-famed tourist attraction, which is kissed by thousands of lips every year, has been slammed by the Lonely Planet, which has described it as “the most inexplicable cliché in all of Europe or the world”.
But as the Lonely Planet admits, this doesn’t put off the 300,000 visitors who “pile into” the 15th century Blarney Castle every year for a mucky moment with the “rock” and the chance to gain the gift of the gab.
The travel guide asked readers to vote on which top ten European icons they thought tourists should “see or skip”. Seventy-three per cent of the 13,000 respondents said the Blarney Stone was a “skip”, ie, not worth a visit.
The poll featured a number of other famous tourist traps in Europe, including the London Eye (which 57 per cent of people advocate skipping), England’s Stonehenge (which 33 per cent of people say you should skip) and the Parthenon in Athens, which only 7 per cent of people advise skipping.
Blarney Castle’s owner Charles Colthurst told the Irish Examiner today that the stone is much more than just a rock, and added that most tourists who left comments in a visitors’ book said they were very satisfied by their visit to the attraction.
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