Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-09-03

 Phoenicians, who are reputed to have colonized the region. and that 1t had long been fin the custody of the Cartha- ginians. who from 1t gained the rep utation for insincerity which is trans mitted in the phrase "Punic faith" and that before that 1t belonged to the Syrians, who were credited with speaking with double tongues after kissing 1t. According to the story, some Carthaginian adventurers be- came enamored of the stone and ap- propriated 1t. They set sail for Minor ca, but, being overtaken by storm, were driven into the harbor of Cork and left the stone in that vicinity un- til 1t was made use of in the construc- ton of the donjon tower of Barney castle.
 As to the origin of the belief in re- gard to the qualities secured by kiss ing the stone, Crofton Croker says that fin 1902, when the Spaniards were urging the Irish chieftains to harass the English, the owner of the castle, Cormack McDermod Mccarthy, who { then occupied 1t, concluded an armis- tice with the lord president on condi- ton of surrendering it to an English garrison. But he put him of from day to day with specious statements, fair promises and false pretexts until the lord president became the laugh ingstock of the ministers of Queen Elizabeth, and the honeyed and delu- sive speeches of the lord of the castle became known as mere "blarney"
 The word found Its way into litera- ture in the last century. In the "Jour- nal" of Caroline Fox, which appeared fin 1885, there is this use of the word: Mime. de Stael was regretting to Lord Castlereagh that there was no word in the English language which answered to their sentiment No he said, there is no English word, but the Irish have one that corresponds exact ly-blarney. Samuel Lover wrote "The blarney's so great deceiver" in one of his Irish novels. President James Buchanan wrote, "The general has yet to learn that my fathers coun- trymen q have ever felt proud of my descent from an Irishman), though they themselves do blarney others, are yet hard to be blarneyed themselves" Washington Irving in 'The Traveller wrote, "So he blarneyed the landlord" James Russell Lowell in "The Fable For Critics" says:
 The cast clothes of Europe your states.
 manship tries
 And mumbles again the old blarneys and
 lies.
 The name of the old time castle and town has added a noun, a verb, an adjective and a participle to the lan- guage. The most comprehensive def- nition of the noun "blarney" is lex. ceelingly complimentary language; flattery; smooth, wheedling talk; pleas ing cajolery" AS to the origin of the word, one Photographer quotes Grote as crediting the derivation of it from the phrase Ticking the blarney stone," applied to incredible stories told of climbing to a stone very diff cult of access in castle of that name in the county of Cork, Ireland" But he added that Dr. Jamieson derives it from the French 'balwerne," "a lie; fris olous talk" and defines it gross flattery; unmeaning or vexatious dis course Iow)." But the word seems to have outgrown this restricted mean ing since the latter part of the eight eenth century. Every Irishman south of the Liffey is popularly supposed to have kissed the blarney stone, and if, moreover he has had a dip in the Shannon he is reputed to have the req uisite amount of impudence. or what the natives call "civil couragc."-N York Tribune.