#19 | David Keohan "Indiana Stones" | Irish Stone Lifting, Giants , and Earth Energy | "It's Not a Stone Its a Story"

David Keohan reveals the ancient and mystical tradition of Irish stone lifting that is interwoven into the nation's rich heritage and mythology. Our profound journey through Ireland's past resurrects the legacy of primal strength, where monolithic stones become the very embodiment of Irish culture. David's passion for this forgotten practice leads us across Ireland's storied landscapes, rekindling the embers of history through the palpable energy of each stone lifted and the fleeting memories of Fionn mac Cumhaill, often anglicized Finn McCool or MacCool.

Together, we traverse the realm of folklore, seeking out stones that bear silent witness to centuries of mythic giants and chieftains. Through David's stirring experiences, we discover stones hurled by legendary figures, drawing us into the visceral connection between Ireland's physical monuments and its vibrant tales. Our dialogue wanders into the potential future of stone lifting as a competitive sport, imagining a world where ancient customs stand shoulder to shoulder with modern athleticism, celebrating the indomitable spirit of the Irish.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones" - IG
David Keohan "Indiana Stones" - Youtube

Transcript

"$awbuck" Mike: 0:01

The Nephilim sightings are going to start soon.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 0:04

Consciousness is being enslaved.

"$awbuck" Mike: 0:06

Your consciousness does not need your physical body to survive. It's the thing that's necessary. It has to be there. It's the coding that projects this world we currently live in. So I'd like you to read the bible. We got reptilians on just outside of our frequency zone, six dimensional beings, the ancient builder race. Ideas are the highest form of intelligence, and that leads you to truth and clarity. The Nephilim sightings are going to start soon. Consciousness show.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 0:34

Most obvious to aliens are god fiends and fatal, huge, we're just born planet.

"$awbuck" Mike: 0:38

They would have needed a minimum of six feet of lead shielding in order to get through the 25,000 mile thick of NL and radiation belt.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 0:44

This is real. They really did fake the moon landing.

"$awbuck" Mike: 0:47

The world is infinitely older than that and I mean the world with human beings in it, skull and bones, is like one of the villains in the Legion of Doom, I'd like you to read the bible.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 0:58

The biblical flood, the tartaria mud flood, conspiracy and chill.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:03

The Nephilim sightings are going to start soon. The bull god ball.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:06

I'd like you to read the bible. There's magnets in the basketballs. There was a political party, a third party called the anti-Masonic party at a point in the United States, the global pandemic treaty Conspiracy and chill podcast.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:24

And we've got another Irish badass on the show today, david Kioen. A stone lifting researcher, a strongman, a kettlebell world champion, a finder of Irish stones and strength Definitely a unique journey, one that I can relate to, with trying to revive the Irish collar and elbow wrestling. That's fantastic. I have a love for that too. I'm nowhere near as strong or brutal as you when it comes to the stones, but I have a thing for lifting stones as well, and I always felt like this seems like a Irish or a Celtic thing and the Scottish tradition of that kind of stayed alive and, as your work kind of shows, it kind of fell off with Ireland. Why don't you get into a little bit of how you got started and the stone lifting and trying to really revive it on the cultural side of things, because you're not just out there picking up rocks, you're doing a lot cooler and a storied thing than that.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 2:24

Yeah, it's been quite a journey, lads. It started off so innocent. It started off like I watched those stone land documentaries, the one they made. Rogue Fitness made three documentaries. I don't know if you watch them. Did you watch those the stones and ones? If you didn't, they're fantastic.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 2:38

They made one in Scotland called Stone Land, they made one in Iceland called Full Sturker and they made one in the Basque region in Spain called the Levante Doris and it's all about the culture of stone lifting in these countries. So it wasn't about the actual physicality of lifting, it was about the culture and the history around stone lifting. You know these are rights of passage. They were. You know there were trials of strength. They were almost like job interviews getting onto like fishing boats or becoming a farm hand or becoming, you know, like a stone mason. You had to be able to lift a certain stone to get onto a boat or to lift, you know, to get a certain amount of money or share of the catch. You had to be able to lift, like they called the Full Sturker stone in Iceland.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 3:20

So I just thought all these stories behind them were absolutely phenomenal and I was looking across that kind of longitudinal line Like there was like this Iceland, and then you had like Scotland and the Fair Oylons and Sweden and Norway, and it was like hold on a second. Why are we the broken link of the chain here? Why is there a break? Why is Ireland not known for stone lifting? So I was thinking, sure, I mean, if it's in these countries, it has to be in ours. You know, if we're, we're practically the same people as the Scots people. We're very, very similar in our tour DNA and history to the Icelandic and the Fair Oylons people.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 3:55

So it was like there has to be a culture here. It was just very deep and I just got looking at it and I just wrapped it on earth and a massive, massive culture of stone lifting and history and mythology here. That was just this culture and the easier can happen over the past 100 years, 150 years. It's just awesome they're bringing it back. I'm sure, like the same with the Colourne elbow, the same thing was such a huge part of day-to-day life but it just fell out with the national consciousness. So to be able to bring that stuff back is just it's a gift, you know.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 4:22

Do you know Nathan Featherstone, the rambling Kern? Are you familiar with him?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 4:26

Yeah, I'm friends with Ron Laine. No, no, but I'm friends with Ron Laine.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 4:29

Same. We just talked to him yesterday and got into how not just Colourne elbow or even the stone lifting, but the language and all types of Irish culture just kind of got stamped out or forgotten and just Will it be.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 4:42

Yeah, for sure, you know. I mean there was a policy to get rid of it, you know, from the British state. You know the 16th and 17th century, the penal laws I don't know if you probably talk about that as well, but like there was the penal law system which meant that the British government were actively stamping out Irish language, culture and religion and ways you know. So I mean it was an active law to make Ireland more British, you know, through imperialism and colonialism. So I mean it was a tough. I mean the past four or 500 years here have been almost like a. They've been a horror story really. You know what I mean.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 5:15

Up until like the 19, say the 1920s, I mean Ireland is only a republic, we're only a nation. Like 100 years here, you know, I mean people forget that like we're only our own independent nation For like just over 100 years, you know. So we're still kind of trying to figure out who we are and kind of. But what I love a lot is that the culture has come back. Especially in the last 15 years, 10 years especially, there's been a real looking backwards at who were we before colonialism, who were we before the Catholic Church took an iron you know, an iron fist of our culture as well and we've kind of climbed out from underneath those two very ways.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 5:53

He's motoring blankets over the past, only the past 15, 20 years, and it's kind of like right, who am I now? Like what does it mean to be an Irish person now? You know what does it mean to be Irish now? Because I mean, I don't know like this is a weird tangent, like just if you don't mind, I'll chat about it for a while then, because I remember when I was growing up, the troubles were still up in the North. We got into troubles. There was still Protestant Catholic punishment, beatings, knee campings, bombings, like get the IRA, yet all that stuff was still active.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 6:26

When I was growing up, it was the party, our day-to-day life, and it's only really this generation, like the last people under the age of 25, who haven't been brought up with that, fighting the British mentality in their lives, probably for the first time in about fucking 600 to 800 years, because we've defined ourselves through the struggle. For as long as I can remember, for as long as my parents, my grandparents can remember, we've defined ourselves through the struggle. All our songs, our rebel songs, you know, everything is rebel songs and fighting against the British and stuff, but that isn't happening now. So it looks like. What does it mean to be an Irish person now?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 7:04

You know we don't have that fight anymore. It's not ongoing. You know, it's not part of my kid's day-to-day life Tankfuck, you know. So I think the best way to figure out who am I now is to look back the way through all of that, and that's where I think the likes of the Colorado wrestling, the stone lifting and these old ways. People are really, really hungry for that now, and that's why I think this is just hit at the right time. It just I didn't plan it that way. It just happened that way that people are hungry for culture. They're like who am I? What does it mean to be me? You know, in this country we call Ireland yeah, it's been a really wee interest in the past couple of years, definitely.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 7:43

Absolutely. My great grandparents, all of them, immigrated from Ireland and I always was kind of I felt connected to the culture, but kind of same I didn't really know like where to begin, because especially like Americans, like a lot of Americans, you know, they like to identify with their ancestry but like here, the whole Irish thing is really only once a year, st Patrick's Day, and even then it's just drinking, wearing green and there's really not much else to it.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 8:08

Yeah, as you touched on, there's way more, way more stuff to be proud of and culture you know there really is, and I think I mean people over here. Some people tend to be a little bit dismissive of American people and their love of being Irish. It's almost like a run of joke to some people here. But I'm like no man. I mean a lot of these people, all of these American Irish people. They're fucking Irish people. They have to move.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 8:31

You know, when you think back in the 1840s, two million fucking people died or immigrated in three years because they you know what I mean people immigrated because they had to. Where did they go? Most people went to American carpentries. So these are people who fucking didn't want to leave but had to leave. So they were right, they're rightly proud of their Irish roots and they fucking should be you know what I mean and like we should be proud to bring these people back and just be able to talk to these people as well and wait in the back into that, you know, into your national heritage, because it's your national heritage as well, you know.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 9:02

Definitely I've never, you know, thought and experienced that a little bit myself, like I'm a third generation American. Am I really Irish? Am I an imposter or whatever? But like then you look at my family had like done the DNA test and it's like 89% Irish, like a little bit of Scottish, a little bit of Welsh, a little bit of Polish, so like it's in there. I feel very connected to it and I know Mike, my co-host. He was living most of his life thinking he was mostly Irish and then uh, the tailing in English DNA test, so otherwise yeah.

"$awbuck" Mike: 9:32

I'm 32% Italian, but then I'm 25% Irish and I think another 31% Scottish. So I'm, you know, mostly Scottish and Irish. It's just crazy because my whole life my grandmother always rejected that she would always be repulsed. I'm English, I'm British, I'm you know it's like, yeah, okay.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 9:48

Well, you were wrong your whole life.

"$awbuck" Mike: 9:50

Yeah, one thing I wanted to ask you about, or more of a comment, I suppose I obviously find that you have a very deep and robust knowledge and understanding of the lost culture, if you will, of stonelifting. I was reading an article the Irish Times that featured you and I found it very interesting that it appears that you just started to get into this when your gym closed because of the uh Radio edit. Is that true? You just kind of started to dive into it as a way to uh to stay fit.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 10:20

Yeah, you're right, you're exactly right there, because I don't know how you guys what it was like over in America, but I mean Radio edit, the laws here were just so fucking strange. I think we were like the most stringent laws in the world. That's what I remember from it because, like we had a 2K lockdown so I mean we couldn't leave two kilometers from our house. We had a lot of cars patrol, cars patrol on the streets. You couldn't move outside of your house a couple of hundred years on it. You know, it was fucking weird. It was like just weird, totalitarian is kind of Voivode got on it. It's like fucking, this is the communist China or something. I just didn't like it, you know, but nobody did, obviously, you know. But I mean Around that time, that's just that they back it up. As a mother, like I was competing for my country in kettlebell sport, which is and this weird Russian endurance sport that I just fell into about 10 years ago through just pure chance, and it's endurance, kettlebell lifting. So it's like two heavy kettlebells to 32 kilo kettlebells for time, 10 minutes, clean and jerk. So I was competing in that for and for for many years and Coach that traveled the world with us, you know, won a world Championship, you know, set a world record at all, is really cool stuff happen and I just finished but bowed out of that at about 2019, 2020 and it was just a really cool part of my life and I was tipping away in the gym for a couple of months after that. I kind of like wonder what I'm gonna do now, you know, because I mean something part of your life or for almost a decade, and You're kind of like, okay, I stick with that's a little bit, but the passion is kind of gone, the edge is kind of blunted, kind of don't want to do with them, and then Struckers like no, you can't go to the gym at all. It's like, what are you gonna do now? I mean, training was part of my life. I trained four days a week in the gym. So Because we couldn't move outside of 2k, I was just at the back and like I met my wife in our college and she has these stone carvings. I go back and please, and just started picking them up. Like wait them. And they're picking them up Just as a board human being, you know, because there was nothing else to do. There's not an answer.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 12:08

Lift, I only have one or two Kettles because I mean all my my gym stuff, like was all in the gym, well, the gear, all the equipment on the weights, I didn't need to buy anything like. I was going to the gym for days a week so it didn't matter. Like I nothing, I like to get buzz and three rocks at the back, so just started picking up rocks. Like I said, as a board human and Fending over the functionality of it, fell in love with the kind of the primal aspect of lifting your outside, get out in the grass and the mud at the back. You're lifting something that's awkward and heavy. There was it's kind of flick to switch. To me it was like a real primal movement. So that was the beginning of it.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 12:39

And then, because I was lifting stones, I became aware of the, the documentaries and by by rogue fitness, and then I was like no, this isn't just a prime physical movement, there's a whole lot of culture attach to this as well, which I love. I love history and stuff, you know. So I was like the history of that Lulema Mines. So I trained for six months and then I went to the lockdowns ease office, well, but went to Scotland. I lifted like 16 of those different stones over in Scotland and including the Fina stone. And which was the light switch moment for me, it was like this is a Fina warriors testing stone. So I'm sure you guys are aware of the Fina warriors, oh yeah, yeah. And so like these are the rebranch now it's the Irish rebranch now. So these are like the ancient Irish warrior cast. You know these rambling warriors from the land. You know I loved, like we were rare, those stories of the Fina here and early in primary school we're taught about cool Colin, we're taught about people who cool, we thought about the Fina or she the daked, all that. So like this is part of who we are, you know.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 13:33

So I was like you tell me there's a Fina stone in the fucking field over in Glen Lion. Like this is like culture and mythology and reality Coming together. I was like I can't believe that's there, you know. So like I have to see this. So I mean we trained, I trained for six months and I lifted, like it was, 14 of those different stones in one day over in Scotland and the last stone was the Fina stone, because I wanted that to give my last memory. So we meant to the Fina stone was just a spiritual experience.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 13:58

I lifted that stone and in a field in Glen Lion and was like Maybe, hopefully, but maybe, like a Fina warrior 1500 years ago, picked this song up and lifted it like going to know. You know, so you weren't reading about history. You know you're you're picking up history. You know you're fucking putting your hands on history. You know it's not a toasty book, it's. That's the, that's the stone there. Take it up. And it was just the most amazing thing. So I mean, when I heard in big Fina, fina warriors was like there has to be something. There has to be. So that's when I really started in a research. That's really two years ago, exactly two years, probably two years and about three weeks ago.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 14:36

Yeah, that is brutal man. I love that and, like you said, that lifting the stone really does kind of wake something up in You're like that primal. I love it. It's so fun and it is like an awkward test of strength. It's very functional, like I feel like it translates well to wrestling. So I've dabbled in the woods, pick it up and, like you said, it's what's what could be older than a stone. So, yeah, how many great heroes or like legendary figures and stuff picked up that very rock that you did so spiritual and just like the connection, like it woke up something Ancestrally in you too and kind of sent you down this whole road. And I see that you kind of like made a map of the ones in Ireland and you kind of piece those together just from like folk tales and like little stories and stuff, and then to go actually find the rocks like Holy shit at the rock.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 15:23

Elaborate on that a little bit. That's incredible.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 15:25

I mean it was like I call myself Indiana's the ones. I know you because it feels like a quest. Like you go on an adventure. You know what I mean. You're going on an adventure for these the ones because I mean I found my first See my first six or eight I found for old folklore, old Irish folk tales, and we were looking off like the best thing that yours come in ever done was back in the late 1930s. They said 11 and 12 year old school kids, the task of collecting all the folk or the nation. So they went to sit at it like 12 year old kids, like six baskets, here's a, here's a notebook. But back and ask your parents or grandparents or great grandparents, whoever's still alive, about folk or in your area, anything, anything at all. So it could be about like battles that happen in your area. It could have been old medicines, old cures and you know recipes, but also like feats of strength or feats of agility or anything at all. So they gave me a whole list of topics, but one of the one of the list of topics whether we're called Dean of Calula or local heroes or Famous people of the area, so not at the times the famous people in the area. They've been noted dancers. They'd be great singers. Verse of fires are to be like great leapers or jumpers or swimmers, but also great strong people and stone lifters.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 16:34

So I just kept coming across because I was like I was looking through these old stories. Someone told me that go on to this cycle, do because and have a look at it, because like there's probably 200,000 stories on this, this site, because every school child in Ireland took all these stories getting to our teacher who sent To the Dublin, to the national folk art collection which is in the wing of UCD University College Dublin. So I started scanning through. It is because they had to have an online about 10 years. And I scan through all this and was like Jesus Christ came out, the stories about stone lifting here across roads and at Funeral games and you know weddings and a few funerals, and it's like Jesus Christ has loads of these stories here. So I scanned through for months and months and months and eventually came across Maybe five or six stories that like seems okay.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 17:18

They gave a maybe like a description of the stone or where it was or what crossroads are, our cemetery it was in, and then it was just a matter of just getting up and instead of sitting around, lazing around on a Saturday in a day, after getting up early and driving to these places. You know, driving to a cemetery in Tipper area, driving up to west of the Galway air and Just going looking around for these stones, it's like you're going, you're following a cold case lead, like a lead is almost 90 years old, but you're getting to these Cemetery's and somebody sent for cemeteries like that, the graver from the 1600s, like from the 1700s, and you're going into the ancient cemeteries, like step back in the past and then in the corner of the cemetery, or like in front of a grave, there's this massive stone to sew out a place like why is that there? That has to be there, for it was the stone of the funeral games. There was the lifting stone in the area and and it was. And I just when I found the first two or three was just a revelation, I couldn't believe that, like 80s, things were real, because you're just following stories and you're reading stories, but written by a school kid in the 1930s, but even though going you're finding the damn things like fucking hell, that was. That's incredible.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 18:23

And take all the stones, the ones I've taken the first one I found. I'll tell you that story in a minute. That story is incredible. I mean, the lean limo flag do you want? But they're all around like 170 kilo average massive. They're absolutely huge and that's what I've come across with all the Irish different stones. They're so heavy, all of them. You know, because when I found the first two or three of the Jesus outliers maybe you know this is just a freak 170, 180, 190 kilos, but all of the ones I filmed they're all in that kind of way it's just, it's been incredible. But, like I said, following those leads and following the folklore is just such an adventure, you know it's. It's almost like you're going on a quest on the weekends. You know absolutely.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 18:59

Sounds exactly like a Indiana Jones type of quest, so the name is very fitting and you're going off of, like you said, pure folklore or mythology, and to actually go there and see it to to be like holy shit, it's there, like you didn't know if you were actually gonna find it, and then to actually lift it and then to actually lift it that's probably one of the most primal, just awesome things ever.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 19:19

You know you get to. This thing is like nobody has even probably laid hands on this in a hundred years, you know, and I found one down in Kerry which is an old iron ingot. There's actually the only one of those in Ireland, an old iron steel ingot that hadn't been lifted in 300 years. So I mean it's, you're putting your hands on something that hasn't been touched in in centuries and you're picking it up. It's. It's nearly impossible to describe the feeling, but it's just, it's incredible, it's absolutely incredible, you know.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 19:48

And to our American listeners who don't know the kilograms, all these are over 300 pounds, pretty much so like put 300 pounds on a bar alone. Yeah, it's hard enough, but to pick up an awkward rock from the ground and get it off, and get it up to chest or shoulder, even just inch it off the ground, is insanely difficult. So you're listening to a very strong fellow here.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 20:10

The way you describe it to anybody is when you look at the Arnold's, you know you look at the world's strongest. The world's strongest men go to the Arnold's the strong man games, you know and they're picking up the Bill Adam Stone which is 186 kilos and it's the stone to shoulder part of that, the strong man. You know what I mean Like. But these guys are deadlifting like well over 400 kilos. You know they're deadlifting almost up around a thousand pounds.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 20:32

A lot of these guys, but a lot of them can pick up that 186 kilo stone off the ground. You know there's two or three guys couldn't even break it off the ground and some guys could only get it to their lap. Some guys one or two guys, of course like the least of kilos you can just get it to shoulder five times in 90 seconds. But some guys have a real struggle with it and I just found it was really interesting that these guys who are so strong, so strong off the ground with deadlifting, can't pick up a stone that's almost a third lighter than what they did lift, you know. So just goes to show you how awkward it is to become something that's that dense and awkwardly shaped.

"$awbuck" Mike: 21:05

You know it really brings it home and you see something like that have you ever traveled to the States or traveled further outside of the UK region to look for stones?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 21:17

No, no, I haven't. Like I said, I'm only on this two years now, but it's my goal. We're hoping to, this year, go to Iceland and live some of the stones over there Like I said, the Hosefell stones and Pripyk stones and like the amount of work that, like an American guy, sean Orkart I don't know if you're familiar with Sean, if you're not, you should be he's one of the best guys in the world of stonelifting and he's also one of the best historians and he's found stonelifting and stonelifting culture, like you name it all over the world, everywhere you know, all the way through Russia, siberia, all the way through, like Kyrgyzstan, across to you know, nepal, all the way through Japan, china, tibet. I mean it's everywhere. I supposed to see all this from a train and really I mean gyms are a relatively new thing when you think about it. So I mean stonelifting is everywhere. So like I'd love to go to different places and what's happening now?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 22:05

That is, I'm getting so much online kind of notoriety through this over the past six months, which has just been really weird because I was just doing it, because I enjoyed doing it, but it's like the whole Irish public has kind of fucking taken this on board over the past six months and it's becoming some kind of cultural thing now, you know, and like I've got guys on the daily now going to visit these stones and lifting them and I've been on, like some of the biggest TV shows in Ireland and there's talks and making documentaries and the talks of traveling.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 22:28

So I mean, like series one, the talk of series one, is going to be like lifting the stones on Ireland. Series two could be traveling around the world. So I mean I don't know where my life is going to go on the next one. I don't know where my life is going to go in the next 12 months, but that must have been an interest in the journey, you know, because something that started off with just me and my car, with a billhawk slashing through edges, following over folklore, because I just thought it was a nice thing to do. Certainly this game, this one cultural identity, it's just, it's been incredible.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 22:52

Absolutely. And when I visited Ireland, I made it a point like because I was only there for a little bit and then I went to go compete in a World Championship Wrestling tournament in England. So like that whole week beforehand I was just trying to go to as many like lots and stuff that I could. And some people who are like watching my Instagram stories or following what I was doing they're like dude, you're driving all over the country to go look at rocks, like to go to these standing stones or like stone circles and stuff.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 23:21

It was powerful, though. Oh man, it's incredible. I mean, where did you go?

"Headhunter" Higgins: 23:24

So when I had my rental car, I started off in Dublin Like that's just where I, you know landed and stayed for the first night or two and grappled. And then I made it a point in when I first reached out to you, because I saw you were at the Cuckolyn Stone too, just like a day or two after me or before me Like I made sure I wanted to go there because I was inspired by you know the story of Cuckolyn. I'm like this really was, if this really was the stone that you know he strapped himself to and died on and stuff like that's going to have some powerful energy. I could use that energy before I go and compete for a World Championship, you know, in my ancestral homeland. So I kind of just wanted to go there as like a power up.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 24:00

And you won, and you won, I did, yeah, I had, I probably had easily the best performance of my life and I just thought super powerful, and I remember, I recall you saying too, the day after you went to the Cuckolyn Stone you lifted the heaviest stone you ever lifted, right.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 24:15

Oh man, it was the same day. Oh, wow, it was the same day. So we were going up to oh man, we're going to hear this one like we're going up to um, up to the north, up to Derry, to lift a stone that was picked up by Fjernmökull, the legend has it so like this is called the Sefin Stone. So Sefin literally means sea, fin, so sea in Irish means sea, and fin is Fjernmökull, so it's the sea of fin, so Fjernmökull, sea. So even the land is named after Fjernmökull, right. So this hill is called Sefin Hill, and on top of Sefin Hill was this pillar stone and that fjernm was meant to have thrown from a nearby mountaintop, right. So that's the folklore. But the actual history is that the Chieftains, the local Chieftains, were coronated at that stone. So ancient Irish Chieftains ascended that hilltop with their hand in that stone and announced their leadership, their clanship rights, you know. So it's like that is just fucking incredible. What an incredible story. And it's also attached to like one of the greatest series of Irish mythology, fjernmökull, like he's actually after picking that stone up himself. I have to see this.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 25:20

So I was driving up that morning, up with a film crew we're shooting a documentary and I saw that we were passing through Cooley, like the Cooley Peninsula, like the Tom Bokulia, the famous Tom story with Coo Cullen. We were passing by that peninsula and it was like look, an open scene, was there anything to do with Coo Cullen in that area? Like some straight or some forward. I could even just walk in the same footsteps as Coo Cullen, but then I found like there's the actual stone where he died at, you know there, the Kluck Farrow Moor, like the stone of the big man, and it was like so I couldn't believe because I never heard of it before. So it was like lads, we're passing this is literally five minutes after off the main road going up towards the north. We have to see this thing.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 26:00

So we went in that morning and got to that stone and it was like the land just put on a show. It was like mist just sweeping across the ground. It was like fucking dry ice, dry ice, kind of sweeping across the ground and it was swirling around the stone. I was like this is just. I mean, it was probably the most fucking spiritual thing I think I've ever done and I was like this is just incredible.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 26:22

And, like you know, you lay hands in that stone, then you feel the energy drop, you feel it. I mean that's that field I was known as the field of slaughter, you know and like they found all bones and all spearheads and ax heads and swords and stuff in that field. So I mean it could be me. What's mentality, what's reality, who knows? Like it's all guesswork. So it's like I really feel that that was the stone that he died at. It's named after him, so like. So I put my hands on that stone. It was like that was just the most incredibly intense experience and I was going to lift that stone. Then that was touched by Fumacool later that day. You know, in one day you're laying hands on stones that were touched by probably the same most famous people in Irish mythology.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 27:01

So we went to that stone up in them up in Derry. Then it was about another two and a half hour drive up the very, very north of the country and we found that stone and I was like, talk about, it's absolutely massive. I couldn't get over the size of it. It's like it's like the same size as me, you know, it's as tall as a man. It's a pillar stone, it's about the same width as me and it's about maybe I don't know maybe a foot and a half take. You know, it's just like this thing is just absolutely how the heck could anybody pick this thing up? But and I tried three times and I couldn't do it and the film crew was there and was like, when I first walked up to that stone I saw it was like there's no man could pick that up. It's too fucking heavy. You're looking at it going.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 27:36

That thing has to weigh 600 pounds. You know what I mean? Like it's absolutely monstrous. You know, I went to, I gathered my thoughts and I came back to this stone and I felt an energy go through me. I thought about the day that I've had and it's like I had an out of body experience and I wrapped my hands around the stone and I picked it up and it came up about maybe about three inches off the ground and it's like I came back and then I felt the weight of it and it came straight back down again. But it was like I couldn't get over the fact that I could lift something that heavy. I mean, because it has to be at least 50 pounds. You know, I'm putting it up around 600 pounds before I get officially weighed on it, you know, but something that big has to be that kind of weight and it was like it was just the most amazing experience lifting that stone.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 28:19

And what we're going to do this year is we're going to put that stone back up on the hill because it's kind of rolled down the hill over the past 150 years. The glass person lift that was in the 1830s, so like it rolled back down the hill and so we're going to bring that back up to the top of the hill in the summertime this year. We're actually going to drag it up on log rollers and do it and we're going to put that back up on the top of the hill and have a kind of ceremony this year and with local archaeologists and stuff. So I mean that's just going to be class.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 28:45

But I mean it's like in one day you had just this amazing, powerful, mythological day and it's like you came back from a week and dream I was driving home going. Did that actually happen? You know it's like this is mythology and reality and, lauren, you know the lines just blowered. I mean it became the same thing. You became part of this incredibly old, old story. Yeah, man, I think you're back to working one day. You know what.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 29:14

I mean it's so fucking strange.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 29:16

But yeah, I mean, what an experience. You know, I'm like that's just two lifting stones. I mean there's just 33, sorry, 35 I found now and every one of them has an incredible story, every single one of them. I mean I could talk about it for like five hours because every one of them has these amazing stories. Maybe not as amazing as that, because that is pretty special, but there's just the history, the mythology, the culture, the folk, the artistry, these things. It's not just a way, it's the weight of history you're picking up as well. You know?

"Headhunter" Higgins: 29:43

Yeah for sure, that is a supernatural experience, to say the least.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 29:48

Oh fuck, I mean it was mind blowing. You know what I mean Absolutely mind blowing. And it's like that stone is just a shit, shit stone. So it's like a silver, so pure silver, and we were there like the golden hours, but it was like five, five or six am and it was like just twilight and the golden sun was shining down on this stone and because it was so silver, it was glowing amber. You know what I mean? It was just one was just glowing amber. I said this is some supernatural shit going on here. You know what I mean? Absolutely incredible.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 30:19

I have a bit of a crazy story too. So like throughout that week, like I said, I was kind of driving all over. I went to Giant's Causeway I was just kind of like looking on my phone like random megalithic sites and a few stone circles, some I don't really recall the name of, and then there was a, so I did get to the Hill of Tara this was the day before the tournament and before I got to the Hill of Tara there was another, just like random. It was called like the Kairns or something I can't. Are you familiar with that? Like it was somewhere near the Hill of Tara, probably about like 30 minutes away, and it was.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 30:48

It was like a big stone mound on top of an insanely steep hill. So like I went there and I was climbing up this hill yeah, it was incredibly steep, it might as well have been a mountain, just like a grassy mountain, and at the top was like the stack of hundreds, thousands of stones which were all pretty big on their own. So you think, like did they carry these one by one up here? Like that would have been insane endurance workout too to get them up there, and like to the highest point in the land and you know, just building this mound and I was up there by myself and, like you said, just the landscape looked so mystical it was extremely just misty and foggy, like earlier in the morning, and incredible view, so it just kind of felt like mystical itself.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 31:26

But as I was coming down, there was like a tour bus of people making their way up and, like I said, it was extremely steep, so they were coming in their own little groups. As I'm coming down and at the very bottom the last guy coming up was like an older man and he had like a Gandalf white beard, like a huge, long, mystical white beard. So like he stood out to me right away and I'm like, oh, this guy's, this guy's a legend, like he just looked really cool. And as I get down he's like he says this to me. He says Now, you are the man of all men among us. And I was just like, well, I just got a blessing from the druid right before, right before this tournament, and I'm about to go to the the hill of Tara. So and I was honestly thinking about what that guy said, like the whole time was I was getting ready for the tournament, like like I was literally part of folklore.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 32:08

Yeah, man, I mean that's. I mean I always say it and I've been talking about this a lot, you know, but I mean I really feel that like there is a bit of magic left in this world. You know, we're kind of the bridge between, you know, between that magic and reality over here. You know, I think there's so much mythology and there's so much buried history here. You know that we are, that we have, we are that bridge between both. You only got to go out in the morning, say we're here on here.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 32:29

Sometimes they can see that mystery rising off the ground and go to these ancient megalithic sites. I mean these sites, I mean they're four, five thousand years old. I mean you're talking a thousand years older than the pyramids. You know a new range and you know some of these, these donons have been to, you know, and those donons are incredible. I mean, how did they build them? I mean it's the same as, like you know, the new granaries, like, and all these stones are like 40, 50 tonne weighters, like how, what the name of God, did they move those things? How did they put them there? Those donons, like they're three stones, like one, two, one at the back and then there's a massive capstone on top like, resting on these knife edges, like, and it could be 60 tons, it's like. You know. How did they levitate it up there? How did it get?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 33:10

up there and it's still there Five thousand years later. You know what I mean. And they could go to these sites and it's like, again, you put your hands out and it gets. It's a really kind of humbling experience because, like, that thing has been around so long, you know, it's been around millennia and you weren't here for a short while, you know. So it's a pretty humbling experience to go to these places, you know.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 33:29

Definitely, and who?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 33:30

knows if it was a giant or what. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I honestly don't know how they don't you know? They're like same as Stonehenge in England. You know what the pyramids themselves and stuff. Nobody knows. We're just guessing, we just don't know.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 33:45

Seems like a perfect time to segue, with this being conspiracy and chill show. We get in there All things paranormal and mystical and weird. So, mike, why don't you?

"$awbuck" Mike: 33:53

take it away. Well, I guess we can start with. Do you have any unexplainable crazy things that may have happened, like maybe something in the sky that maybe they didn't know what it was, or maybe you thought you might have seen a ghost, or do you have any kind of crazy stories like that, possibly?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 34:10

No, but I tell you one, and it's not to do with lifting the stone. I live in Waterford, which is down the southeast of Wern, and like we have these old what they call fairy rinks or fairy mounds, where the true Irish mythology to Athedere, danon would be the Irish kind of side, or the fairies would live in these forts. So it was always like don't touch the forts and even to this day people don't go into these forts. If they're on someone's land they'll kind of play with land around them, they'll farm around them, but they won't go into them because there's a respect for them. Even now I mean they've. Actually they moved a motorway going from Galway to Clare around one of these fairy mounds. It was planned to go straight through it but the workers wouldn't Bulldoze the mountain. Like no fucking way, my bulldoze in the fairy mountain. Joke me, I'm going to get bad luck for my family for the rest of my life. No, so they actually built a fucking motorway around the fairy mountain so I was not to touch it. So there's still a huge respect for these places here.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 35:11

But I found this one, this guy's land, in Piltown, which is just about 20 minutes away from my house, so I went out to this guy's land with an archaeologist. He said no, whenever I visit this because it's on this guy's land and not many people know about it. So he told me this is a large anvil stone. So I mean we went into this place and this anvil stone like the size of the table I'm sitting at, probably weight about 40 tons, totally out of place, like where they got it from. How they moved it there, nobody knows. But he put a spirit level on it and it was absolutely perfectly level. You know it's like how did they do that? How did they bring it there? What's it there for? Nobody knows.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 35:47

But there was also what looked like a lifting stone under this white hawthorn tree. Now, the white hawthorn tree would be a tree very much associated with the fairy people as well. So it's like if there's a white or a black hawthorn tree, you don't go near the tree. You know you don't go near anything under the tree. That's a special tree to the fairy people. So I didn't see the tree.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 36:07

I went over, I saw this stone. I started moving it about. I was like fuck, that looks like a lifting stone down the top and I saw it was a white hawthorn tree. He's like shit. So put the stone down. I said look, I'm getting out of here, chairman. He's like okay, no problem. I didn't say why, but as I was walking back to the car, there was this flock of small birds there must have been about a thousand of them Followed me, down, over my, over me, they got into my car and for about two miles I was driving back into town, this flock of birds stayed over the car and it freaked me to fuck out. It was like. It was like they were saying won't touch that fucking stone, don't come here again. Are we fucking haunt you? They went. You know what I mean. So I was like okay. So, yeah, definitely the shit on it.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 36:51

I love that.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 36:53

And I mean it actually happened. So it was like and it's never happened to me before, anything like that, or never happened to me since. So it was like it can't be that much of a coincidence, you know.

"$awbuck" Mike: 37:05

I believe it. Yeah, we tend not to believe in coincidences on this show too often. So there are so many instances of large stone megaliths and monoliths around the world and a lot of them, as you mentioned, are in places that defy logic. Some of them probably can be explained by really strong men or a group of really strong men, but some of them are really hard, at least in my mind, to explain away. By that, do you think that there might have been some kind of ancient lost technology, say maybe like levitation devices or anything like that could be responsible for some of these that we see?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 37:45

Again, it's hard to know. I mean, I have gone down this particular rabbit hole hard myself that's a couple of months and like the likes of fucking Graham Hancock and all that kind of stuff and we could go into Randall Carrollson and all these guys and looking at this kind of stuff and I like that they're trying to come up with an idea of how they've done it. You know, with maybe vibration or some ancient way of lifting rocks or moving rocks, because I mean, even looking at something as simple not as simple, but something as simple as the diamond and they say, like you know that they had to. What they done was they built a mound of earth and then placed these stone on the top of them and the earth and dug it away.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 38:24

That doesn't sound right. You know what I mean. First of all, these things are like eight foot height. What kind of a size of a mound of earth would you have to make to get that stone up on top? How would you get the stone up on top? And then how would you balance it? You know, I mean it's. It doesn't make any sense. So I mean there had to be some way that they knew how to do these things. You know what that was, I couldn't tell you, but I mean some of the size of some of these stones. You're like there was definitely something fucking that we don't understand going on.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 38:53

Well, like the one that you lifted that, you were like how, how could anyone lift this? And you had the little out of body experience to do it. And it's Finn McCool is, and he was literally said to be a giant, so maybe it was some giants lifting these. There's plenty of stories of giants in not just Ireland but all over so many stones.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 39:11

I mean, like Irish mythology is just full of stories of giants, you know. I mean, should the Giants cause it built by a giant? Mythology? You know that was like if you're McCool was throwing stones to get over to Ben and Donner, the Scottish giant can make a pathway to get over to him. And he was doing the same with the Fingals Cave or Fjons Cave in the Scottish side. Also, like the, the Isle of man was meant to be thrown by Fjell McCool and where he picked up that piece of piece of earth is now Lock Aira up in Lock Ney up in the North. So they got it Ireland's eye, so it's like that's. He was meant to pick it up with that huge piece of earth thrown out to sea and that's the Isle of man, you know. So I mean all these stories are all to do with Irish giants and the Irish giants have literally shaped the land through mythology of Ireland, I mean, and there's Giants throwing stones.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 39:55

That's just every village in every town in Ireland has a Giants throwing stone attached to it and I've gone to about 30 of these sites myself. You're talking these large like glacial erratics. That probably are, but I mean there are these huge stones sitting out in the middle of a field or on top of a hill that are just incredibly out of place Anything up to 200 tons or like 500 tons monstrous stones. And local mythology is built up around them that they were thrown by Fjell and thrown by Oshin and thrown by Diermiddler, thrown by one of the Defina. But I mean, I also found this a giant throwing stone that was a lifting stone for the man up in County Mayo called a Clockandara or the Clockandre, and that was Andra's throwing stone and the legend behind it was that this giant used to throw the stone around like a pebble. It was so light from it you could up to it. It went over a shoulder, but the men then would try and lift that stone off the ground to see where they as strong as the other giant. So again, there's mythology and reality combining, you know. So these guys were farming old metallurgies to see if they lived this stone to be as strong as the giant.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 41:00

And I found that stone through the old folk art collection up in County Mayo in a place called La Hagaure, and the stone was just being used as a siege in the middle of the village green. It was just this massive, beautiful, massive stone about 185 kilos, close on 400 pounds, sitting in the middle of the green and being used as a siege by the kids, and it was like that's the giant, strong stone and they got that verification from locals there and I was like why aren't you guys didn't making more of it? Why aren't you guys putting up a plaque? Why aren't you advertising? You've got this incredible story, this incredible stone here.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 41:33

You know what I mean. This mythological ties to it and it's like nobody really gave a shit, you know. But that's what I've been doing is bringing the shit back and getting it on the map. And now this guy's coming from all over the world and wants to see if they lived this stone, to see if they're as strong as the night. You know it's a really cool story. It's up there with some of the best living stories in the world. You know, like they went over an Iceland and that kind of stuff to the lake steam and it's just, it's wonderful and it's great that again, like you said, this has this mythological and physical toy in this stone and that's the bridge. You know, it's just class.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 42:03

So I'm assuming you got it up right, You're as strong as the giant.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 42:07

I mean the first time I couldn't. It was just too big, it was just so awkward. It was only about the fifth stone that I found that I was only start majority because I mean when I was lifting kettlebells it was only like 78 kilos. It was in the 70 78 kg category. You know, I'm like a hundred kilos. I've had to put on a lot of weight to lift these stones. You know, weight was weight but I'm forced to make it lifted.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 42:25

I got my best lift on it about three weeks ago. We went up in a film crew and we lifted that. I got it about maybe about three feet off the ground, two or three feet off the ground. So that was just such a cool lift. And it was lashing rain. The same day it was in the middle of a storm, rain, wind, but still managed to pick that song up. It was just such an awesome feeling, you know.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 42:42

And then we went down to the guys. We went down to the local pub. We just got chatting. They're like what are you here for the really bad day? And so I was down lifting the stone and they showed him like fuck, I was crowned around, look at the phone. This guy lifted the stone, and then it was a guy who went on to go down and try it themselves and stuff, and that's what I'm loving. It's like all you got to do is go down and find these things, get them back on the map, lift them, and then everybody wants to come and lift them again. You know it, all it took was someone to light the spark. Thank God it was me, and it's so happy.

"$awbuck" Mike: 43:09

Would you be for or against if they decided to put stone lifting in the Olympics In?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 43:16

the Olympics. What I'd love to see is I don't know Olympics, I don't think that I'd ever walk or what I'd love to see is like Joe, have you seen Magnus or Magnuson doing his classic over in Iceland? Oh yeah, magnus is doing literally a stone lifting event, a stone lifting whole event. There's like eight or 10 different events in it, but it's all based around stone lifting. So I just think that's a really, really cool idea and I think it's a really proper strongman thing to do. You're not lifting calorie weights, lifting awkward weights, so I just think it's so awesome. So I'd love to see something like that.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 43:50

I was actually trying to organize something like that here last year, but I had a bit of a problem getting insurance. No one would ensure me to lift Magnuson's stone. Go figure, go figure. But I'd love to see some events like that. I'd love to see one say if you had an Irish one or an English one, a Scottish one, a Welsh one, an Icelandic one, maybe we all get together and lift the seat, which is the strongest? That'd be a really cool idea. But another part of me thinks no, it's nice to just have these things as a test of strength. That is just you against nature, it's just you against the stone. You lifting the stone. I think there's something quite beautiful about just doing that as well Going out into nature, finding these stones, going to these old cemeteries and crossroads and just testing yourself, like the men tested themselves 150 to 200 years ago. So a part of me likes that idea as well.

"$awbuck" Mike: 44:42

Did you always have an appreciation for geology and rocks? Because you sound, when you talk about the rocks you talk about it with passion, so much more than I would about rocks say. But it does sound like you have a deep appreciation for geology and rocks, so I was just wondering if that was something that you've always had and it's just lately. Your last few years has really exploded.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 45:06

Yeah, geology I've always been interested in your megalithic sites here and Irish mythology Ever since I was a kid, because we were thought in school and I kind of took it a bit further getting books and stuff when I was younger. So I loved our Dalmonds, our Cromlecs, our standing stones, our megalithic tombs and, like I lived beside the sea in my former years, so I lived out by the sea in Anstown and I always loved them. They were stone beaches, like they're not sand beaches. We used to go down to swim in the stone beaches four or five months a week before I went to school and so I always loved the stone and I loved nature and that's always part of who I am. So this is just kind of taking that to an order level, I suppose. But yeah, it was always in me definitely.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 45:49

Like he said or like I said, people were telling me like really, you're going around driving looking for rocks, but it does seem like a sacred and a spiritual thing, like people nowadays or whatever, like whether it's like New Age or like hippy-ish type of people and their crystals and they, you know, they love to have their different minerals and crystals and stuff, and like it doesn't get any more raw than a giant rock that's been around for thousands of years or been shaped over time. And yeah, I understand the connection.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 46:18

Exactly. I mean, people think I'm fucking mental, but they have for ages you remember the last price started doing this, like people saying you're driving to fucking County Mayo, which is like a five hour drive from here through shitty, winding roads. You're driving to Mayo to look at a fucking stone and then you're driving home the same day. Yeah, I'm a happy man, you know what I mean. But like, it's not just a stone to anybody else is just a stone, you know, but it's the history and the stories and the metallurgies made them so much more than that. It's not a stone, it's a story, you know. Relic.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 46:54

And you are definitely not alone with people thinking you're crazy as a guest on this show, and that's why you were a perfect guest.

"$awbuck" Mike: 47:01

I got a question that just came to me. Sure, if you could cast a magic spell on any rock, and basically what the spell would do is that would allow that rock to speak to you and tell you about everything it's seen and witnessed, what rock would you pick and why no?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 47:21

that's a good one. That's a very good question. Hard to me wants to say the Clock Far and More because it was to do with with Cook Holland and to know the history and the story behind one of the greatest warriors in Irish mythology and history. But another hard to me would like to know all about the flag of den up in County Cabin because there's so much history and stories touching that one and the fact that a pre-Christian it used to be what we call a coursing stone, like a pagan coursing stone.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 47:56

So like in Ireland, like these are scattered all over and like that you could lay a course. It was like voodoo you could lay a course against someone. If you could move the stone a certain way or flip the stone over, you could lay a course or we call a pisho against someone who done your wrong. So that stone was always a pagan, was always a coursing stone, and then it became an alder stone when we were under Pina Lough by the British. So like we had people like keeping an eye out because there was priest hunters who'd come over and hunt the priests. So the Irish were plumbly Catholic, so they were saying Catholic mass not in churches but in cemeteries or in hedges. So we had what we call hedge priests. I mean at hedge schools we're teaching Irish in Irish ways. It literally it digs us. And we had people looking out for the red coats for the British would come and literally there's people implied to come over and kill the priests the priest hunters they were called.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 48:46

So that stone was used as an alder stone when there was a priest hunters. So again, the stories that thing could tell and it was also used as a lifting stone at the funerals. Then in the 1800s the man would see, could they lift this massive flagstone? And they said in old ways it was 500 weights, so like 100 weight is like 50 kilos, which is 120 pounds. So it was 500 weights, so that's 250 kilos, so 500, well, 550, maybe 560 pounds. So they delayed for us to get that massive flagstone up into your knees and there's some great stories about men picking it up and some men being hit to put it on his back and walk it around a graveyard. So that stone was like it was a pagan stone, like a druidic stone, a pagan stone.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 49:31

It was an altar stone. It was like almost like a touchstone to our fight against oppression and it was a strongman stone. So it's got so much easier it has to be. Some part of me thinks it should be in a museum, but another part of me thinks no, should be just there. People should go and lift it and admire it and get all the stories behind it, and I'd love to hear what that stone could tell me, going on the way back like thousands of years.

"$awbuck" Mike: 49:57

It's almost unfair to ask you to only pick one. You know.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 50:03

That's one you know, and there's just so many, just so many. That's something to ask, and pick your favorite choice. They all mean so much so.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 50:11

Do you guys know about the stone of destiny? Yeah, that he fought the one that's under the royal throne of the Queen and King, correct?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 50:21

That's called the Leofold. So that's what they call the stone of destiny. In Irish mythology, the real stone of destiny is the Leofold upon the hill of Tarra.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 50:30

The hill of Tarra. Yeah, that's standing stone. I went up there and touched that. That was. That was a big sight as well, and I know it didn't swing with you. No, that would have been easy. You're not behind me.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 50:41

A word and so, okay, that's all right, easy trade.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 50:44

Very cool, yeah, from my understanding.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 50:47

So, mike, or any of the listeners, if you guys aren't familiar with this, the throne that the Queen or the King of England would sit on, and for thousands, or maybe just like 500 years, I think, is the tale the last 500 years that the English have had it.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 51:01

There's a slot underneath the wooden throne, the actual chair they sit on, and there's a slot where this rock sits. And they put this rock that they call the stone of destiny, that they think either came from the Toatha de Danaen or some people even say it's like the stone from the Bible that Jacob put his head on and, like, saw his vision of heaven, and it was brought to Ireland and then subsequently it was taken to Scotland when, like, because, like, at a certain time, like if you were the King of Ireland, you were also the King of Scotland and parts of Britain or Wales or whatever. So then, when the seat of power was in Scotland, they took that stone with them and then, down the line from there, they took it, the English took it from the Scottish. So they believe they have this old, like you know, powerful relic stone under their throne which gives them some sort of like right to rule.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 51:51

But it's not amazing that that's still happening. I mean, like the coronation of the current King of England and that stone was brought from Scotland to England and there was a whole procession and it was put onto the fucking throne and I was only like, well, two years ago, a year and a half ago, and then that's still happening. So these are all practices, that's still fucking happening. You know what I mean. But they believe that that's the Leopold. We believe that we have the Leopold, the original one, up in the Eilatira. So there's a whole kind of thing about it. But yeah, I just think it's amazing that the stone and coronation there's such a tie in there because, like the Irish one was like the High King of Ireland had to touch the Leopold and the stone would cry out if it was the rightful King. And that was the history behind that one. That one I found in the Seffin stone, like this whole ascension to hill tops and touching the stone. That's like the Northern Ireland version of the Leopold. Again, this guy had to get the climb to the top of his hill, he lay handed on the stone and announces his right to be achieved. And you have, like a year and a half ago in Britain, the current fucking monarch also had to have that stone as part of the coronation ceremony.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 53:02

So you're going to show you the power that are in these stones and the veneration that there is for them still and something that's kind of we can't put our finger on point they're so powerful, but they are. I suppose it's the fact they're a martyr. You know what I mean. They're a martyr, you're not. You're just one part of the stone story. So that's what I love going fucking lifting these stones. You become the next link in the chain. You kind of reach them back to the last person who lifted it through the midst of time it could be fucking 200 years and then you're reaching forward to the next person who's going to lift it and you're that next link, you know. So that's just something beautiful. You're going to step it into the stream of history of these things.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 53:36

Yeah, that is amazing, dude, and you touched on it a little that you were trying to organize some sort of event. Do you have any other like plans or visions of where you're trying to take this or where you're trying to spread it, other than just kind of doing your thing and getting the story out?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 53:53

When I started like I had no man. It was just I wanted to find them. I wanted to see it because it was here and that was it right. But in the past 12 months it's kind of become. You become like almost like the guardian of this. You become like the gatekeeper of this whole knowledge, you know. So my main thing now is to spread that knowledge, just in case that happens. You know what I mean, because you're the person who's done all the work. You've done all the research.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 54:18

So when I'm writing a book at the moment like the book hopefully will be released at the end of this year and I've written the first draft about all these stories and finds and stones and everything that pretty much like a lot of the stuff that we talked about here, but I mean for all of them and I want to get that out and share the story with people. That's what I want to do now. And so now we're making documentaries, we're making TV programs. I'm going on to late night TV shows and talking about this thing and it's my main aim now is to spread the knowledge as much as possible. You know, when there's a GQ magazine getting on board and doing an interview, I mean, that was incredible, you know, just get international attention to it. So my goal for this next 12 months because I don't want to look too far ahead is just to spread the knowledge as much as possible and then we'll see what we take from there, what we can do next.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 55:02

But yeah, it's, it's did. I think I'd be getting this amount of international attention about it. Not a bit, but am I happy? Yeah, it's awesome. Thought a little bit fucking mentally jarring. You know what I mean Because you are still working on a normal job they're not the five job but on the weekends you could be talking to fucking anybody Archaeologists, professionals, historians, strong men strongest men are the strongest woman in the late night TV shows fucking anybody. Biggest podcast in the world anybody. And then you're back to work on Monday. You know what I mean. So it's kind of weird Alcant Stiltman Void going on at the moment. But I just want to get this knowledge out as much as possible over the next 12 months and I guess it's see what's going on there.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 55:43

That is awesome, dude, and I can relate in my own way.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 55:47

I like, after I did that whole trip and I was there in Ireland first time, visiting, going to all these sites, like I go do this you know storied wrestling style to and win the world championship, go climb the Holy Mountain, crow Patrick, on Halloween in the county that my family was from, and then come back to real life and work in and stuff and I'm like man, I just I feel like I just lived a whole lifetime over there.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 56:10

But another goal that I had in mind for years, even before I figured out about the collar nobo, like that was a big wake up and inspiration for me Because like I knew that Ireland didn't have, you know, like wrestling and grammar school and like they don't have like international representation for just like other styles of wrestling, not even just the folk style that was, like you know, unique to Ireland, which is collar nobo, but as far as just like general wrestling, like we have it here in the States and like it's a big thing growing up.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 56:37

So I always had to go in mind like I'd really love to go to Ireland one day and like teach my wrestling that I grew up doing and like share it and kind of like help that be a thing. And I did get to teach a seminar when I was out there and it was, it was great. That was a very, you know, rewarding feeling, and then doing the collar and elbow thing here. So like I'm planning to come back this year and go compete in that same world championship in England, hopefully competing other tournaments, and, you know, teach, maybe, have a little bit longer, stay this time. And I'm telling Mike, get your passport, mike, so you can come with and you can document it and come hang out.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 57:13

If you guys are coming over, let me know. We organize a day to meet up. If you do, if you come over, we make that happen.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 57:21

That's what I was going to kind of get to. A stone lift with you would be legendary or even some sort of a collaboration, because Nathan and I were talking to we were going to do a collar and elbow match in Phoenix Park because they used to hold collar and elbow matches there and like the 17 1800s, that'd be like the first one there in hundreds of years. And the guy, ruan McFadden, who's the author, who kind of like revived collar and elbow, who really like put the info out there to kickstart the revival. Like his work was talking about the, the Talcian Games, which was like before the Olympics in Ireland, where they had stone lifting, they had wrestling, they had running, they had all. It was like a to honor a goddess, kind of like the Olympics, but long before the Olympics. And who knows, maybe we can kick start some sort of revival of that type of thing, including stone lifting, including wrestling and whatnot. You never know what the future holds.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 58:10

You're not the fourth person to say it to me, you're not the fourth person to say it to me. So I think there's a hunger for that stuff. They did try and bring the Chattanooga games back in the 1920s and it was great, but it just kind of fizzled out with everything that was happening with World Wars and the massive, massive immigration. But I mean, I think there's a hunger for that. So I think that's a genuine possibility in the next you know five to 10 years. You know, we could bring back these ancient games and we could fucking really really make it go over and get some fucking you know funding and getting maybe some grants involved. So, yeah, actually that ball has started to roll a little bit of rail out. So yeah, I think that could definitely, that could definitely happen.

"$awbuck" Mike: 58:42

You guys lift the stones and I will lift the camera to document it.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 58:48

And then we go on going to the points out towards the sounds like a plan, definitely.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 58:51

Definitely. I think that we got the horses to pull it off just a couple of passionate and crazy fellows that like history and want to bring it back. Man.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 59:03

And look, I mean, all it takes is passion. I mean I'm passionate, passionate works, you know what I mean? People follow it. So I mean, like I found that, especially over the past 12 months, that if you're just passionate about something, no matter how obscure it is, that people just get interested in it because that it exudes, you know. So let's just let's do that, let's fucking let's see how far we can take it, absolutely.

"$awbuck" Mike: 59:24

Passion is contagious. Exactly, man, exactly.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 59:28

I'm hoping probably end of summer around fall. So I'll definitely be in touch with you about coming out there meeting up hopefully get my hands on some stones.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 59:38

Yeah, man, we pick out a few. I mean again, give me a couple of weeks notice when you're coming over and we organize a weekend or something that I'm off and we can just go. We can go pick, I can send you on a few wherever you're staying, and we can pick something close and make a day of it.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 59:52

Yeah, definitely will do. And kind of getting wrapping this episode up, what's the name of your book going to be called?

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 1:00:00

I'm going to call it the Wind Under, which I think is because you're literally getting the wind under the stone, but you're also getting the wind under the old culture. You're on our fingertips again. So I'm going to call it the Wind Under and, like I said, first draft for it and please God, it'll be up at the end of the year.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:00:16

Awesome, Mike. You got anything else you want to ask this strong fellow?

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:00:21

No man, this was fun and educational. Thank you so much for doing this, man, and your YouTube channel again for everybody.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 1:00:27

Yeah, so I mean we can hit me up on. Instagram is the main thing I'm on, so I'm doing that as Indiana Stones. Anybody wants to follow along the journey out of the quest that I'm on, and then who gets to on ironically say they're going on a quest on the weekends. So if you only want us to follow along, just just hit me up on Indiana Stones or check me out. Like I said, the GQ stuff, just take me in to Google, it comes up.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:00:45

Definitely be sure to check them out. I will be in touch for sure. I'll be definitely looking and gaining some inspiration. I'm about to go hit a training session in a little bit here and I'm feeling inspired by this conversation. It was great having you, man. Thank you for coming on dude.

David Keohan "Indiana Stones": 1:00:59

Thank you so much, Really appreciate it.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:01:00

Let's find ourselves. Good luck. Indiana Stones I liked his accent. His accent was good.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:01:04

Definitely it's a treat for the listeners to get to Irish dudes back to back, whether they, like you said, if they're released back to back or not, but it's just a good listening experience and the dude had a lot of interesting stuff to talk about and him just talking about the rocks with such passion and shit it makes me want to go pick up some rocks.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:01:24

What kind of rocks?

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:01:26

Definitely not. Some crack rocks there you go yeah, those are.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:01:29

Those are not as light or, I'm sorry, those are not as heavy, those are not nearly as heavy.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:01:35

Dude is strong as fuck he looks slow, you can tell for sure, and I wonder how long it took. I should have asked him how long it took to adapt from just lifting like kettlebells to lifting some of these crazy rocks. I wanted to ask him if there was any he wasn't able to pick up to. So I guess we'll just have to get to that next time.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:01:54

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask him too about some of his tattoos. But yeah, you know, if there's always next time, I'm happy that people are starting to recognize him and starting to, you know, like he's the last six months, he's kind of starting to blow up and just from the little bit of research I did, you know, I brought, I brought up to one article that was in the Irish Times, which is a pretty big publication, and then, GQ too.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:02:16

So he definitely is breaking through the fringe and kind of into the mainstream with that. So I really think that big things are in in his future for real, dude, I think that for real.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:02:29

Gotta get that passport, Mike.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:02:31

Yeah, I can, I can. That's a. It takes a little bit of time, though. Right Was it take like six weeks or something they say.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:02:37

It'll probably yeah. So if you get on it now, we'll be ready to go.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:02:41

Yeah, my wife's been talking about wanting to do that for everybody in our our house too, so, yeah, I got to get on it. I feel like a broken record, but this was another good one, definitely. Eventually, maybe we'll say this was a, this was a bad one, but this was another good one. Until then.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:02:58

Hopefully not. Great great guest list so far and definitely was up my alley.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:03:03

You know we could always just not fucking release it too, you know, if we have a bad one. So there's that. Continue to support the five star reviews. Whatever platform you guys are listening to us on, it really does help. Also, follow, like, subscribe, do all that good shit on whatever social media platform you could do it on all of them.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:03:21

That would really help. But whichever one you're on the most X, instagram, youtube, patreon become one of the very first conspiracy and chill syndicate members. And also you can support the show as well, for as little as $3 to get your get your name shouted out. Or if you don't want your name shouted out, maybe you want like an ex girlfriend shout out, for you know bad things. That's cool too, man. You know we don't discriminate, so we're equal opportunity destroyer.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:03:50

We are here for your requests, as long as you don't make them too weird.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:03:55

Yeah, you know well, no gay things, except more Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:04:01

We can take gay requests. We're weird here, but just keep it appropriate, guys.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:04:06

Super weird Indiana Stones. His knowledge is very robust. It's very impressive for a guy that's really only been digging into this for what? Three, three, four years, I mean. I found that to be. One of the most impressive things about it is he's very, he's very, very knowledgeable, you know, and he's gone down some rabbit holes. As he mentioned about possible levitation, and that's kind of where I was going with it. I wanted to see what his thoughts were, because what do you think, man, they're, they're had? You know some of these are just how do you explain them?

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:04:43

you know some of the sites I wish I could explain it, I don't know. Giants, like literally in the folklore. Most of it is attributed to giants, or maybe a druid, magic of some sort, levitation, atlantean technology, who the fuck knows it's. That's part of the mystery of it itself and, yeah, I think the passion is what's really possessing them. He's, he's so into the stones and like I know how he feels. Dude, like doing the collar and elbow and like Roman those sites like he's inserting himself into like a modern mythology, so that's just fucking legendary. I love what he's doing.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:05:17

Yeah, I like what he's doing too. I like that we had back to back dudes from Ireland, and I like where we're going. We're trending in a good direction. I like that we have a small but loyal group of diehards. We definitely have the the randos to what. We fucking love you all and we want to hear from you all. So it's about all I got, man.

"Headhunter" Higgins: 1:05:38

Come back for some deep dives and chill vibes.

"$awbuck" Mike: 1:05:40

Yes, and stay away from pedophiles.