Word: blarneyed
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Died. Mary Penelope Hillyard, sixtyish, owner of Blarney Castle and the stone embedded in its parapet that is said to bestow the gift of persuasive eloquence-in other words, blarney-on whoever kisses it; after accidentally setting her clothes on fire with a cigarette; in County Cork, Ireland. Mrs. Hillyard inherited the 15th century castle in 1951 from her uncle, who stipulated in his will that the fabled stone must never be sold. When an American chain-store millionaire offered to buy it in 1968, she turned the offer down, presumably with eloquence...
Jimmy Breslin's book, which bristles with anecdotes and is embellished with Irish blarney, is the best...
Priest and Peasant. He is not indulgent. The book remorselessly records a people drowning in paradox and blarney. Smothering religious piety coexists with savage sectarian hatreds. The calamitous failure of subsistence farming in the 19th century has ensured the preservation of exactly the same kind of subsistence farming in the present. Blessed with a shore line that attracts international trawlers, Ireland has never launched a fishing industry. "Socialism," O'Hanlon writes, "is a nasty word in Ireland, yet it is difficult to think of a non-socialist economic structure where the government's presence is so pervasive...
...political style is dead. It should be buried, particularly by Presidents. Everybody except the politicians seems to sense that. Hoopla, frantic flying, blarney about peace and prosperity are worthless. Worse, they are laughable...
With McCormack as his patron, O'Neill soon entered the inner circle of the House, where his blarney and good fellowship made him a quick favorite. O'Neill regularly attended the select meetings of Sam Rayburn's "board of education," afterhours sessions in the Speaker's office where the likes of Lyndon Johnson, Albert and McCormack met over bourbon to discuss the business of Congress...