INDIANA STONES AND THE QUEST FOR THE STONE OF INISHMORE.
Join me and my good friend Petr as we battle driving rain, gale force wind and stormy seas in our attempt to find "the stone" written about by famed irish novelist Liam O'Flaherty in the short story of that name. Liam was born on Inishmore and he wrote about the natural beauty and hardiness of island life.
In his story (which I've included in the photos on this post) he talks of " the stone" and that "from the time of the most remote ancestors of the people" men from the village lifted the "challenge stone" to prove their strength and improve their social status.
This intrigued me! As you can probably guess, the possibility of a HISTORICAL Irish lifting stone. So I researched and found that the late great Peter Martin was also aware of this and spoke about in a piece he wrote about ancestral irish stone lifting...(included in photos on this post)
Then I came across this intriguing post about the possibile LOCATION of said stone by a local woman on a post 10yrs ago on Facebook.(included in photos)
So with these clues in our bag, (and a fair few cans of stout), we set off to follow the trail.
Watch the vlog its good craic (vid 1)
So after much time and effort including vans, boats, high seas, bikes and walking we arrived at the area, and this stone stood out amongst all the others. The colour, the shape, it was on its own little patch of grass beside a wee plinth... it Had to be it! (vid 2)
It was also HEAVY. So it fitted the theme of getting the wind under as a valid lift, and someone having "HEROIC STRENGTH" to be able to lift to chest. I'm lifting 150kg relatively comfortably to chest lately, so I'd estimate 170kg roughly for this.
Got the wind under, was delighted to do it as you can see, (vid 3) Took 5 attempts and it was only about 2 mm, but i did it!
I'm incredibly excited and proud to have found this. Couldn't have been done without the great research and stories by great men before me.
We stood on the shoulders of giants and took the next step.
THE CHALLENGE STONE OF INISHMORE.... found!
A great day for the Irish strength community.
I've placed the location and map pins in Google Maps link below.
GRÁ AGUS BEANNACHT MÓ CHAIRDE GO LÉIR
