This month's World Heritage Site

GIANT’S CAUSEWAY
Mystifying Visitors for Centuries

By Toni Dabbs

Northern Ireland’s legendary Giant’s Causeway consists of approximately 40,000 polygonal basalt columns jutting into the sea beneath sheer cliffs that form a series of headlands and bays. It has attracted tourists since 1740, when a Dublin spinster’s sketches provided the first widespread publicity of its unusual basalt formations.

However, discovery of the causeway is attributed to the Bishop of Derry, who discussed his 1692 visit to the site with the learned circles of Dublin. Two years later, Sir Richard Bulkeley of Trinity College presented a paper to the Royal Society in Dublin, outlining this “amazing” discovery and beginning the debate on how it was formed.

Of course, the real discoverers were likely the people who settled Whitepark Bay after the last Ice Age, 10,000 years ago. They no doubt traveled around the north coast on hunting expeditions and would have encountered the causeway.

Science

Geologists explain that the causeway was formed some 62 to 65 million years ago during a long period of volcanic activity. Three major lava flows occurred, referred to as the lower, middle and upper basaltic. The causeway columns occur in the middle layer.

The mostly six-sided (but also four, five, seven and eight-sided) stones were created by the cooling and shrinking, along regular lines of force, of molten lava from a vast volcanic eruption that formed the Antrim plateau. When the lava flowed into the sea, it cooled quickly, crystallizing into the polygonal patterns.

Although similar formations occur in the surrounding landscape of North Antrim, at Staffa in Scotland (Fingal’s Cave) and in other places around the globe, the Giant’s Causeway if considered to be the best example of columnar basalt in the world.

Because it is a “superlative natural phenomenon” representing a “major stage of earth’s history,” the Giant’s Causeway was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites in 1986.

Mythology

Local folklore offers another explanation for the causeway’s creation.

One day, the Irish giant Finn MacCool was going about his business on the north coast when the Scottish giant Benandoner began taunting him from across the channel. Benandoner shouted that he would beat MacCool if he could get his hands on him. Then he added that MacCool would be spared that fate, since Benandoner couldn’t swim across the channel.

MacCool began tearing large chunks from the cliffs and pushing them into the ocean bed, building a sturdy causeway between Northern Ireland and Scotland. When he finished, he shouted to Benandoner: “Now you have no excuse.”

But MacCool was tired from constructing the causeway and he wanted to rest before facing Benandoner, so he came up with a plan to buy himself some time. He made a large crib, disguised himself as a baby, climbed inside and waited.

When Benandoner arrived at MacCool’s house ready to fight, he found the crib with the “baby” inside it. “My goodness,” he thought. “If this is the size of the baby, how big is the father?” In fear of meeting the baby’s father, the Scottish giant turned around and ran back across the causeway, destroying it as he went.

Formations

A number of the causeway’s basalt formations have been given names based on the story of Finn MacCool. For example, the Giant’s Organ contains the tallest of the columns (12 meters high). There’s also a Giant’s Boot, the Giant’s Granny and Giant’s Gate.

Other whimsical names for stone shapes and combinations are the Fan, the Punchbowl, the Honeycomb, the Chimney Pots, Lord Antrim’s Parlor, and the King and His Nobles. Only a few eight-sides stones exist, such as the Keystone and the Wishing Chair. A guide published by the National Trust indicates the locations of the formations.

But the basalt columns are not the only formations to explore. At the west end of the cliffs is the Portcoon Cave, a large sea cavern that may be entered from the landward side and has striking underwater color reflections. The cave is associated with tales of smuggling and ghostly pipers.

At Portnaboe are the remains of low stone walls. Several theories exist regarding their purpose: one is that they were built to pen sheep or cattle; another is that they were used to dry seaweed harvested along the shore; and a third is that they were built by Vikings for wintering at the causeway.

Vikings are well documented in the history of Ulster. They first came in small “hit and run” raiding parties and then later in fleets, using their boats for wintering. They would build a low stone wall in the shape of the hull, turn the boat upside down on the wall and secure it, creating a weatherproof shelter.

Portnaboe also has two volcanic dikes intruding into the sea, one of which is aptly called the Camel’s Back.

Shipwrecks

Over the years, the foreshore around the causeway has claimed many ships. The schooner William and Mary hit the rocks between Portnaboe and Portcoon while traveling from Cumbria to Donegal in 1890.

Ships lost off Port Noffer include the Abraham and Ann in 1824 and the Diligence in 1839. In 1847, the Spokesman, en route from Liverpool to Derry laden with coal, foundered in the same area. According to reports of the time, no one was found with the grounded wreck and the log book contained no records for several days prior to the wreck.

The causeway’s renown was enhanced in 1967, when the most valuable treasure ever found in a Spanish Armada wreck was discovered at Port na Spaniagh. The Armada’s biggest ship, the galleass Girona, sank off Lacada Point during a storm on the night of October 26, 1588.

Only five of the 1,300 men on board survived. Bodies washed ashore, and written accounts tell of a pile of white bones that once existed just above the shoreline of the bay, known locally as the Spaniards’ bones.

The Girona carried not only her own treasure but also what the Spaniards had been able to save from two other Armada ships wrecked earlier on the west coast of Ireland.

In 1968, nearly 10,000 objects were brought to shore by a team of Belgian divers led by Robert Stenuit of Brussels. These included the ship’s anchor, cannons, cannon balls, silver forks and spoons, 750 silver coins, 400 gold coins, eight solid gold chains, and gold jewelry inset with rubies and pearls.

The most beautiful and valuable items are now on permanent display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. The story of the Girona is told on picture boards at the causeway.

In 1986, an Interpretive Center was opened at the causeway, 12 kilometers east of Portrush and 15 kilometers west of Ballycastle. It features exhibits based on fact and fiction, and it includes a theater, restaurant, souvenir shop and information center.