The Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland

The Giant's Causeway: A natural wonder of the world created by volcanoes? Or built by giants?

Built by giants.

Obviously.

My visit

A month ago I found myself with my friend E in Dublin, exploring the city, the Irish country and even popping back in to the UK's Northern Ireland to see the Giant's Causeway.

Walking on the hexagonal basalt columns was like walking on a brutalist loving giant bee's honeycomb. Weird. Surreal. Awesome. The photos dont do the place justice nor does it really show the differing levels of the columns. But it is incredible. All I could do was stare and try to imagine how the heck this happened. Like I said, must have been giants ;)

The Legend

Located on the northern tip of Northern Ireland, the Giant's Causeway gets its name from an old legend. The story goes that there used to be a giant called Finn MacCool that lived on the Irish coast with his giantess wife, Oonagh. He was the biggest and strongest in all the land. But one day he heard that, actually, there was a Scottish giant called Benandonner across the sea who was bigger and stronger.

Boys being boys, one thing led to another and they challenged each other to a fight. However, there was the slight problem of crossing the sea between them, so Finn built a causeway to get to the other side. When he got closer to Scotland he saw that, yeah, Benadonner was bigger...and in a panic he ran home to his wife...but not before Benandonner had spotted him in the distance...

Back at home, Finns clever giantess wife dressed her husband in baby clothing, put him in a cradle and waited. When Benandonner arrived looking for Finn, the giantess welcomed him into their house  to wait for Finn who was off on a small errand and would be back soon. Taking a seat Benandonner noticed the 'baby' and thought…if that’s the size of the baby then Finn must be huge.

Making some feeble excuse he ran back across the causeway home, but not before he destroying a good part of it so the other giant could not follow.

And thats how we ended up with the causeway as we see it today. Its quite a trip from Dublin so if you do find yourself interested in seeing the Giants Causeway yourself, be prepared for a long day, or, you can always visit from Belfast.