The Blarney Stone and the Art of Eloquence (Exam-Board Approved)

‘Everybody's Irish on St Patrick’s Day’.  The day when the world turns green, drinks tinted pints, and pretends that humming ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ constitutes cultural expertise.  For those of us in the business of literature, it’s also a chance to celebrate Ireland’s unrivalled literary legacy - and to reflect on one particular national treasure: the Blarney Stone.  I gave it a go on a road trip once - dangling backwards over a castle wall, as tradition demands…

Legend has it that kissing this slab of limestone bestows the gift of eloquence - a theory neither proved nor disproved but surely tested by Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Seamus Heaney and the like, who somehow managed to become literary giants without visibly dangling backwards over a castle wall.  Still, the idea that Irish writers possess an almost supernatural command of language isn’t just folklore.  The evidence is written all over the syllabus.

For IB Diploma Programme students, Irish literature appears with gratifying frequency.  Beckett’s Waiting for Godot provides ample material for Paper 2, its existential absurdities practically begging to be unravelled in a comparative essay.  Heaney: Poems 1965–1975 is an anthology so rich in imagery and political undercurrents that it remains achingly current.  And let’s not forget Edna O’Brien, whose The Country Girls trilogy dismantled conservative Ireland’s social mores with an audacity that saw the books banned but never silenced.

A Level coursework (the NEA for AQA or comparative coursework for Edexcel and OCR) provides similar opportunities for the discerning.  The Picture of Dorian Gray - for those who like their texts with an extra dose of aesthetic decadence - remains a classic for a reason.  And The Playboy of the Western World, a play that once incited riots, now waits benignly, ready to provoke debates on rebellion, storytelling, and whether Synge truly had the gift of the gab.

More contemporary works are making their mark.  Sally Rooney’s Normal People has been a popular addition to reading lists, offering a modern dissection of love, class, and identity with prose as finely tuned as a whispered secret.  Anna Burns’ Milkman - a Booker Prize-winning stream-of-consciousness masterclass - explores the weight of silence and societal expectation in Northern Ireland with brilliance that IB and A Level students alike could analyse for days.  Meanwhile, Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn continues to resonate, its quiet exploration of Irish emigration and belonging lending itself beautifully to coursework discussions on identity and displacement.

Of course, none of this guarantees that kissing the Blarney Stone will turn a struggling student into a literary prodigy, but it’s a nice thought.  So this St Patrick’s Day, let’s raise a glass to Irish writers, their syllabus-friendly brilliance, and the enduring myth that eloquence can be acquired via an awkwardly positioned kiss on an ancient rock. 

If only it were that easy.