The Giant’s Causeway, Ireland

I probably wouldn’t have gone to see the Giant’s Causeway if it hadn’t been on the itinerary of our day-trip from Dublin to Belfast—and that would have been a shame. It really has to be seen to be believed.

It’s not that I’d never seen pictures, including a fine set from four years ago by our fellow Gumbo, DrFumblefinger; it’s just that the pictures, mine included, don’t have the same effect as seeing and walking on the thousands of basalt columns, and seeing their setting on a green and rocky coast, with Scotland visible in the distance—on a very clear day.

Of course, as the name tells you, there’s a legend attached, that it is the remnant of a causeway built by Finn McCool, who may or may not have been a giant, but went across it to fight one in Scotland. I’ll not tell the whole tale here; there’s a little video that tells it better.

There is a small element of truth to the legend. The causeway is a collection of some 40,000 basalt columns thrown up in a prehistoric volcanic explosion, and there’s evidence of the same formation on the Scottish side, at Fingal’s Cave on the island of Staffa. The columns were created by contraction, which fractured the lava as it cooled—a bit like what happens when mud dries.

Oddly enough, for something as startling as this, no one appears to have paid it much attention until the late 17th century, when the Bishop of Derry visited the site, and saw the columns, partly exposed from under centuries of soil and greenery. He passed the word to Sir Richard Bulkeley of Trinity College, Dublin, who made its fame with a paper for the Royal Society, Dublin.

Some have been walked on so much for so long, their edges are rounded

After that came the artists, and the scientists, and eventually the tourists and the hotelkeepers and the promoters, who, among other things, built a tramway to the top of the plateau. By the late 19th-century, it was one of the most popular visitor sites in Ireland. Parts of it were also extensively quarried by its private owners.

In the 1950s, ownership was taken by the National Trust, which over time removed much of the commercialism and opened a visitor center, which burned down in 2000. It took 12 years to replace it because of a new controversy over whether it should be a public or private operation. Public won out.

The visitor center is just off the highway, and it’s a half-mile, but easy, walk to the causeway itself, with views over the cliffs and bay and small islands. To my surprise, a great deal of the area is green, with openings and outcrops visible here and there.

Some of them have fanciful names of their own; one area of very regular and narrow columns is known as the Giant’s Pipe Organ.

The area is not only an attraction for human visitors; birds like it, too. There are colonies of petrels, cormorants, razorbills, and other birds I never knew of, including shag. You may spot some of these, especially over the water; when it comes to the rocky shore, there are so many people they resemble colonies of birds, and the real birds give them a wide berth!