1837
The Reliquaries of Father Prout
Father Prout was the pseudonym of Francis Sylvester Mahony, possibly the greatest champion of the Blarney Stone.
He added the famous lines to Milliken’s ‘Groves of Blarney'...
"There is a stone there, that whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent. Tis he may clamber, to a lady's chamber, Or become a member of parliment. A clever spouter he'll sure turn out, or An out-and-outer to be let alone. Don't hope to hinder him, or to bewilder him. Sure he's a pilgrim from the Blarney Stone."
A friend of Dickens and Thackeray, Mahony had a great sense of mischief and much of that was reflected in his publication, Reliquaries of Father Prout, wherein he evangelised fulsomely of the benefits of kissing the stone.