lled; but the grounds still
are beautiful, rock and water being features in the landscape, the
picturesque effect of which neglect cannot injure.

The castle consists of a massive square tower, that rises broad and
boldly above surrounding trees, on a precipitous rock over a stream
called the Awmartin; and attached to the east side is an extensive
dwelling-house, erected about a century since by Sir James Jeffreys, who
purchased or obtained this estate from the crown, and in whose family it
still continues.

Blarney Castle was built about the middle of the fifteenth century,
by Cormac MacCarty, or Carthy surnamed Laider, or the Strong. He was
descended from the kings of Cork, and was esteemed so powerful a
chieftain that the English settlers in his part of Munster paid him an
annual tribute of forty pounds to protect them from the attacks and
_insults_ of the Irish. To him is also ascribed the building of the
Abbey and Castle of Kilcrea, the Nunnery of Ballyvacadine, and many
other religious houses; in the former of which he was buried.[2] It
would be a matter of little importance and considerable labour to trace
the Castle of Blarney from one possessor to another. The genealogical
table in Keating's "History of Ireland" will enable those addicted to
research to follow the Mac Carty pedigree; but a tiresome repetition of
names, occasioned by the scantiness of them in an exceedingly numerous
family, present continual causes of perplexity to the general reader.
The names of Donough, Cormac, Teague, Florence, Dermot, Owen, and
Donnel, constitute almost the whole catalogue used by the Mac Carties[3]
for a period exceeding six hundred years.[4] This difficulty is
heightened from the entire Sept being, in point of fact, without a
sirname, as the followers of most chieftains in Ireland as well as
Scotland assumed that of their lord. In the reign of Edward IV. a
statute was enacted, commanding each individual to take upon himself a
separate sirname, "either of his trade and faculty, or of some quality
of his body or mind, or of the place where he dwelt, so that every one
should be distinguished from the other." But this statute did not effect
the object proposed, and Spenser, in his "View of Ireland," mentions it
as having become obsolete, and strongly recommends its renewal.

[2] This tomb, according to Archdall's "Monasticon Hibernicum,"
stood in the middle of the choir of Kilcrea Abbey, with the
foll