Legend would have it if you remove even a pebble from the ground of the Blarney Castle you will be struck down with bad luck.

This myth was proven to be true on June 4 when the staff at Blarney Castle received a package from Liam Sareman in Canada who was returning the piece of the wall he had taken home as a souvenir after he was struck with a bout of bad luck.

Blarney Castle tweeted “Myth has it, if you take a stone from the castle, you will be struck with bad luck! Proof this morning when we received a stone in the post!”

Sareman stuffed the stone in the post along with a letter explaining that since taking the stone as a special souvenir in February 2009 he had had a constant stream of bad luck. In his letter he asked the staff to put the stone back exactly where he had taken it from in a hope that his the curse might be reversed.

The Castle’s owner, Sir Charles Colthurst told the Irish Examiner that this case was not as unusual as it seems. He said He is one of many who have done this, that Canadian man, it’s not unusual — it happens every year.”

"I get bits of stone returned, sometimes four or five pieces a year, from visitors who said they suffered terribly bad luck having taken a piece of stone from the castle or from the grounds.

"The annual return of the mischievous stones continues to feed the inexplicable legend.

"They never go into what kind of bad luck they’ve had, they just package up a stone and send it with a note, asking for it to be returned.
"They could lean down, pick a stone off the path — I don’t know where.

"But in general, they will say, since they went back to wherever they live, they’ve had bad luck and they want to return the stone."

The bad luck, for those who do not believe, is indeed explicable. Sir Colthurst’s only explanation is that it’s “all a load of Blarney isn’t it? Maybe its a punishment for stealing. Every act tells a tale."