Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway was the main attraction and biggest reason I wanted to visit Northern Ireland. As you've read already, Ireland and Northern Ireland have many spectacular places to see. But Giant's Causeway, also a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a geologist's dream. As someone who works in the geoscience field it was breathtaking to see such an expanse of basalt columns and their beautiful symmetry lined up along the Antrim Coast.  If there's one thing in Northern Ireland that you can't miss, this would be it.

The Giant's Causeway Visitors Center opened its doors in 1986.  Like the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, this site is part of the National Trust, a conservation organization in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (Scotland has an independent National Trust).  Its aim is to preserve and protect historic places for everyone to enjoy for the years to come.

The Chimney Stacks

Though the Visitors Center has only been open for about 30 years, this site was "discovered" around 1693 when Sir Richard Bulkeley, a fellow of Trinity College, presented a paper about it to the Royal Society.  However, the Bishop of Derry had actually discovered it a year earlier in 1692.  Since no one had seen anything like this before, many argued whether Giant's Causeway had been created by men with chisels, nature, or a giant.  It wasn't until the 18th century that Demarest, a Frenchman, determined its inception to be the result of volcanic activity.

Antrim was subjected to volcanic activity 60 million years ago when molten rock was forced through fissures in the chalk bed to form a lava plateau.  Three periods of volcanic activity occurred, resulting in the Lower, Middle, and Upper Basalts.  The 40,000 or so columns we see that form Giant's Causeway are the Middle Basalts.  These basalt columns form when rapidly cooling lava contracts and fractures in a way similar to mud, only these fractures continue to propagate downward to form pillar-like structures.  Most are hexagonal, though there are some octagonal columns.  Across the sea there are identical columns (from the same lava flow) at Fingal's Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa.

Before Demarest concluded that the Causeway formed from volcanic activity, legend had it that the columns were the remains of a causeway built by a giant. According to the story, Scottish giant Benandonner challenged Irish giant Finn MacCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) to a fight. Finn accepted and built the causeway so that the two could meet. There are two versions to the rest of the story. In one, Finn defeated Benandonner. In the other version Finn hid from Benandonner when he realized how big his foe was and was disguised as a baby by his wife. When Benandonner saw how big the "baby" was, he feared that the baby's father must be a "giant among giants" and fleed back to Scotland, destroying the causeway behind him so Finn couldn't follow.

There are a number of walking paths available at Giant's Causeway.  You can choose to take the seasonal Ulsterbus (or walk) to the beginning of the Giant's Causeway Walk, which guides you to the Shepherd's Steps and circles around to the start after two miles of walking.  There are also a few other walks that branch off from the main Giant's Causeway that take you from the Organ to Reostan, through the Runkerry Circuit, to Dunseverick Castle, or along the Portallintrae.  Since we only had one day to see as much as we could, we only circled through the main Giant's Causeway walk.  But if you have the time, I'm sure it's absolutely worth it to spend a few hours exploring the other paths!

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