Our Travelers' Diaries
Writers, Myths, and Legends - A Journey to Ireland
Submitted by Lois

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We left the Bally Castle Hotel and continued north to Giants Causeway. This is a beautiful natural formation at the tip of Ireland, a short ferry boat trip from Scotland. There are beautiful cliffs and incredible basalt columns formed in mostly hexagonal shapes by volcanic eruptions 60 million years ago. The shapes were created by the fast cooling and shrinking of the lava. Some of the columns are 4, 5, 7, or 8-sided. Rick Steves says they look like giants' cigarettes. Others say they look like stepping stones, and that may be the origin of the legend of Finn MacCool and another story about how the causeway was formed: Finn MacCool (the giant in Giants Causeway) had an argument with the Scottish giant across the channel about who was the toughest (typical males). He built the causeway with the multi-sided rocks to gode the Scottish giant into coming over and duking it out. But, he was so tired after building the causeway that he wasn't up to a fight. With the Scottish giant on his way, he had to come up with a plan...read the rest here:
http://www.northantrim.com/giantscauseway.htm

Here is the map showing where the causeway is located:
http://www.12travel.com/goto/map_detail.html?map=J01

Just south of the causeway, we also toured the Bushmill Distillery, the oldest licenses whiskey distillery in the world (1608). I include a photo of its oldest and original building.
http://www.bushmills.com/public/history_heritage.jsp

Stopped by the ruins of Dunluce Castle. The castle was built in the 13th century and was the home of the McDonnells, and the object of many sieges through the years. In 1639 part of the castle fell into the sea! For more on the history of this castle. The site has views from the sea side...quite beautiful!
http://www.northantrim.com/dunluce_castle_information.htm

We are now turning west and heading toward Derry.

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