Giant's Causeway
Photos taken in August 2011
Giant's Causeway
The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (4.8 km) northeast of the town of Bushmills. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986, and a National Nature Reserve in 1987 by the Department of the Environment for Northern Ireland. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, the Giant's Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven and eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres thick in places.
The Giant's Causeway is today owned and managed by the National Trust and it is
the most popular tourist attraction in Northern Ireland.
Some 50 to 60 million years ago, during the Paleogene period, Antrim was subject
to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through
chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau. As the lava cooled rapidly,
contraction occurred. While contraction in the vertical direction reduced the
flow thickness (without fracturing), horizontal contraction could only be
accommodated by cracking throughout the flow. The size of the columns is
primarily determined by the speed at which lava from a volcanic eruption cools.
The extensive fracture network produced the distinctive columns seen today. The
basalts were originally part of a great volcanic plateau called the Thulean
Plateau which formed during the Paleogene period.
visiting is a family activity
Legend has it that the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. One version of the legend tells that Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. In a variation, Fionn fled after seeing Benandonner's great bulk, and asked his wife to disguise him as the baby. In both versions, when Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn.
Another variation is that Oonagh painted a rock shaped like a steak and gave it
to Benandonner, whilst giving the baby (Fionn) a normal steak. When Benandonner
saw that the baby was able to eat it so easily, he ran away, tearing up the
causeway.
Another version of the legend was that Fionn had spent many days and nights trying to create a bridge to Scotland because he was challenged by another giant. A fellow boatsman told him that the opponent was much larger than he. Fionn told his wife and she came up with an ingenious plan to dress Fionn like a baby. They spent many nights creating a costume and bed. When the opponent came to Fionn's house; Fionn's wife told him that Fionn was out woodcutting and the opponent would have to wait for him to return. Then Fionn's wife showed him her baby and when the opponent saw him he was terrified at the thought of how huge Fionn would be. He ran back to Scotland and threw random stones from the causeway into the waters below.
The "causeway" legend corresponds with geological history in as much as there are similar basalt formations (a part of the same ancient lava flow) at the site of Fingal's Cave on the isle of Staffa in Scotland.
The discovery of the Giant's Causeway was announced to the wider world in 1693
by the presentation of a paper to the Royal Society from Sir Richard Bulkeley, a
fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, although the discoverer had, in fact, been
the Bishop of Derry who had visited the site a year earlier. The site received
international attention when Dublin artist Susanna Drury made watercolour
paintings of it in 1739; they won Drury the first award presented by the Royal
Dublin Society in 1740 and were engraved in 1743. In 1765 an entry on the
Causeway appeared in volume 12 of the French Encyclopédie, which was informed by
the engravings of Drury's work; the engraving of the "East Prospect" itself
appeared in a 1768 volume of plates published for the Encyclopédie. In the
caption to the plates French geologist Nicolas Desmarest suggested, for the
first time in print, that such structures were volcanic in origin.
The site first became popular with tourists during the nineteenth century,
particularly after the opening of the Giant's Causeway Tramway, and only after
the National Trust took over its care in the 1960s were some of the vestiges of
commercialism removed. Visitors can walk over the basalt columns which are at
the edge of the sea, a half mile walk from the entrance to the site.
Text from Wikipedia
the bus bringing visitors to the site
photographers all
"The Traveler" returning from taking these photos
