Established as a UNESCO World site in 1986, the Giant’s Causeway and the area around it on the north Antrim coast has long been a favourite site for tourists to Ireland. It was ‘discovered’ by polite society at the end of the seventeenth century and was not marked on maps until 1714, despite the fact that some of the earliest settlers in Ireland are likely to have lived on the north Antrim coastline, as the flint-factories on Rathlin Island testify. From the time of its discovery, the causeway became increasingly popular, so that by Victorian times, any traveller to Ireland considered it a compulsory stop along their route. Visitors such as William Thackeray and the Halls gave detailed descriptions of it. Some of the travellers, having seen the somewhat exaggerated prints of the wonders of the causeway, may have been a little underwhelmed. While the black basalt rocks, which make up the causeway, are interesting in a geological sense, the area they cover is not a huge one. Nevertheless, there are estimated to be 40,000 of these rocks, and they are set in stunningly beautiful surroundings of magnificent cliffs which have formed their own strange shapes and columns.
WH Bartlett’s engraving, ‘Scene at the Giant’s Causeway’, County Antrim.
Tourism, with the guides, postcards, boat-trips and hawking, while providing an income for local people, also brought its own dangers of overcrowding and, before safeguards were put into place, in some cases involved the actual removal of rocks from the causeway. Now, access to the causeway and cliffs is better controlled and, while there are still crowds in summer, a visit during spring or autumn, preferably in the early morning, can be made with nothing but dozens of sea birds for company. At any time of the year (with the possible exception of wild winter days, when the cold wind can cut through any number of layers of clothing), the cliff walk is well worth making, with magnificent views to the west to Donegal and eastwards towards the blue outline of the Scottish coast.
The causeway (Clochán na bhFomharaigh – ‘the stepping stones of the Fomorians’), once believed to be the work of giants, is in fact a totally natural formation. Sixty million years ago, lava flowed towards the sea, cooling to become black basalt and, in the meantime, cracking to form the honeycomb of shaped rocks – in a similar way to the way in which mud cracks when it dries. Many layers of lava flows resulted in the variety of shapes and sizes, from the tall columns and the misshapen cliffs to the flatter causeway itself. While Thackeray described the causeway as ‘a remnant of chaos’, in some ways it is the very opposite – an example of a natural wonder that seems so regular and ordered as to have to be man-made, the work of some demented and obsessive giant. And so the stories go. According to local stories, the giant Fionn Mac Cumhaill, transformed by folklore into a comic figure rather than the great and jealous warrior he comes across as in the legends, built the causeway as a route to fight a giant in Scotland. When he reached Scotland and saw his enemy, he realised that he was bigger than he thought, and ran back towards Ireland, tearing the causeway up behind him. The remnants on the Scottish side lie around Fingal’s Cave on the island of Staffa, and take the form of basalt columns. There are many stories about Fionn still remembered by the people of Antrim – his cleverness, his strength, and, in cases, his bad temper, as when he turned his mother into rock because she was nagging him for going too slowly as he was building the causeway.
However, there are also other, less light-hearted stories associated with this wild stretch of coast – of shipwrecks and deaths at sea, and the hard life of these hardy people. One of the great waves of Ireland, the wave of Tuaidhe was said to come in at Ballintoy, to the east of the causeway, and Ballycastle Harbour is notorious for its treacherous currents. If you make the walk along the cliffs eastwards towards Port Moon, you will pass Port na Spánaigh, where the Spanish Armada ship, the Girona, foundered in 1588. There were 1,300 people drowned in the wreck. The remains of the ship were discovered in 1967, when the gold and jewels found by divers were transferred to the Ulster Museum. The coastline is deeply indented and the little harbours are a litany of musical names – Port Coon, Port Moon, Portnaboe. The final point on the cliff walk, Dunseverick Castle, stands on the ancient site of Dún Sobhairce, one of the four royal roads which led from Tara. It was at Dún Sobhairce that King Rónán slew his son in jealousy and began the slaughter that would see the death of his friends and family. It is a fitting point to stop and reflect on an area that has changed so little since the first flows of lava headed northwards, and the fiery stone met icy water to become a landscape set apart.
FIONN’S VISITOR
Fionn often went to fight the giants in Scotland, and he made the Giant’s Causeway as a convenient way of getting across without wetting his feet. However, there was a Scottish giant once, who decided to come across the causeway and fight with Fionn. Fionn’s wife spotted him as the huge creature made his way over across the stones, and realised that he was twice the size of her husband. When he reached Fionn’s house, the giant knocked on the door.
Bang, bang, bang.
Fionn’s wife opened the door (we are not told which wife it was, but it seems likely that it could have been Gráinne, as she was obviously a woman of quick wits).
‘Good day to you,’ said the giant. ‘I’m here to fight your husband.’
‘Are you indeed?’ asked Fionn’s wife. ‘Well, fair play to you. You had better come in and rest yourself, for he’s away hunting. He’ll be back soon.’
The giant came in and sat crouched by the fire, and the woman of the house offered him a drink and began to sing softly to the figure sleeping in the settle bed.
The giant took a closer look into the bed. There was a huge warrior there, with a bearded face and shoulders like an ox.
‘Who is that?’ He asked the woman of the house.
The distinctive stones of the Causeway.
‘That’s the new baby,’ said the woman. ‘The ba – the last of fifteen. The rest are out hunting with their daddy. Isn’t he a fine lad?’
The giant nodded and came forward to have a closer look. ‘Indeed he is.’
The figure gave a little moan.
‘Ah, the poor baba. Sure, isn’t he teething?’ said the woman. ‘Would you mind putting some salve on his gums while I heat some milk for him?’ She handed the giant a pot of white ointment.
The giant cautiously put his ointment-covered finger into the creature’s mouth, then yelped and jumped away.
‘He’s after taking a big bite out of me,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you say he was only getting his teeth?’
The woman sounded surprised.
‘You must have hurt his poor gums. Well, he is teething. It’s his wisdom teeth he’s getting. Sure every baby of Fionn’s is born with a full set of teeth apart from those last four.’
‘And a big hairy face?’ asked the giant. ‘And legs like tree-trunks?’
The woman smiled indulgently.
‘Indeed, that’s the case. I’m telling you, I had a terrible time when this lad was born. Would you like me to tell you all about it? Three weeks in labour I was … but of course it was worth it – isn’t he a grand little fella? But not one of them is a pick on their father.’
The giant took off out the door and ran all the way to Scotland, pulling the causeway up behind him as he went.
Fionn’s wife laughed and said to the figure on the bed, who could no longer keep the grin off his face: ‘Well, husband dear, you can get up now. I don’t think that fella will be coming over looking to fight with you again.’
