In the footsteps of giants

I’ve always heard that Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland is beautiful.  In the 90’s the last time I lived here though, Northern Ireland wasn’t exactly the best place for a family vacation destination.  The intricacies of the disagreements, skirmishes and disparities between Ireland, Northern Ireland and the wider UK are too much to even try to describe in the short space of this light-hearted blog, but I did like the summary from one guide book that we read – I’ve abbreviated it further…

Like its Celtic cousins, Scotland and Wales, Ireland has always been difficult for Britain to handle.  However, Ireland has been much more distant from London – a distance due more to its Catholicism than the Irish Sea.  Four hundred years ago, Protestants were strategically planted in Ireland to assimilate the island into the British economy.  This didn’t go well.  When Ireland won independence in 1921, six of the 32 counties stayed part of the UK whilst the others formed the Republic of Ireland.

In the Republic of Ireland (the south), where 94 percent of the population was Catholic there was a clear majority.  But in the North at the time it was formed, Catholics were still a sizable 35 percent of the population – enough to demand attention.  To maintain the status quo, Protestants considered certain forms of anti-Catholic discrimination necessary.  It was this discrimination that lead to the “Troubles” (the conflict that filled the headlines from the late 1960s to the late 1990s).

Four hundred years ago, the Troubles were a fight over Protestant and Catholic religious differences.  But over the last century, the conflict has been not about faith, but about politics: Will Northern Ireland stay part of the UK or become part of the Republic of Ireland?  The indigenous Irish of Northern Ireland, who generally want to unite with Ireland, happened to be Catholic.  The descendants of the Scottish and English settlers, who generally want to remain part of Britain, happen to be Protestant.

Though there continue to be eruptions of violence, mostly in Belfast & Derry and mostly around mid-July around the anniversary of the original disputes, there has been healing over the last 10-20 years with a significant step coming in 2010 when Prime Minister David Cameron expressed regret for the British Army’s offenses on Bloody Sunday.  And luckily for tourists, it’s no longer a sadly contorted corner of the world.

After saying a sad goodbye to our country cottage in Ardfinnan, including George (who we found out from the owner when we turned in the keys, real name was Louis), we set out for the north.  Not wanting to just see the Irish highways (which in a complete side note, are absolutely amazing!  After years of British roads, we really appreciate wide lanes, well signposted exits and smooth pavement.  Ireland has it!), we decided to turn off onto side roads and head in the general north easterly direction…or at least that’s what I told Adam when for the eleventh time he asked where we were & what we were doing on a road next to a cow – literally.

Eventually we found ourselves driving along the Antrim coast. The coastal-way is about 20 miles long, but easily takes you a day to drive it with tourist stops and many pauses at each scenic overlook along the way.  We set out from our bed & breakfast in Ballymoney around 9am towards our first stop of Giant’s Causeway.

Geologists claim that the causeway was formed more than 60 million years ago when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau.  As the surface of the lava flow quickly cooled, it contracted and crystallized into hexagonal columns.  As the rock (looking a bit like reptile skin) later settled and eroded, the columns broke off into many stair-like steps.  The pillars today stick up along the coastline like hexagonal trees waiting to be plucked from the sky.

Of course, the truth is that Finn MacCool, a Northern Irish Giant Warrior built a bridge to spy on rival giant, Benandonner, living on the Scottish island of Staffa (only about 17 miles across the Irish Sea).  Finn crossed over to Scotland to discover that Benandonner was a much larger giant and quickly retreated back to Ireland; running so quickly to leave his boot at the base of the bridge.  To hide, Finn had his wife dress him as a sleeping infant, just in time for the rival giant to come across the causeway to spy on Finn.  Benandonner, shocked at the “infant’s” size, fled back to Scotland in terror of whomever had sired this giant baby.  Breathing a sigh of relief, Finn tore off the baby clothes and knocked down the bridge.  And we know this is the truth as the geologic formations extend under the sea…and surface again in Staffa in Scotland.

Finn's boot!  He's a size 47, if you wondered.

You can see the storm roll in from the sea.  What you can't do is run fast enough from the top of the cliff back into the visitor's center to keep from being rained on, then sleeted on, then hailed on.  Needless to say we were really wet about 10 minutes after this picture was taken.

From Giant’s Causeway we drove the 10 or so miles to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge.  Just 65 feet off the mainland of Northern Ireland is the island of Carraig a' Ráid.  Originally built by fishermen, the bridge was strategically placed over the 90 foot chasm to allow the gathering of nets from the salmon filled sea below.  In the 1960s, almost 300 fish were caught each day, but by 2002, only 300 were caught over the whole season.  The bridge is no longer used widely by fishermen but rather the tourists who for £5.60 can take the terrifying walk single-file across a the bridge made of string and wood…not exactly the ironbridge from earlier in our trip!

You can call me a wuss, but there were 40mph sustained winds with 60-70mph gusts.  There was absolutely no chance I was going on a rope bridge 90 feet above a rocky, cold sea.  So we watched other crazy people attempt the trek.

We had planned to have a picnic at the overlook above the rope bridge, but the aforementioned wind on top of the already cold temperatures and the fact that we were still a bit damp from our earlier rain / hail / sleet shower, we decided eating in the car at the outlook was just as good as the picnic tables.

After lunch we finished the meander along the coast before hitting the road for our final destination of the great Irish adventure : Dublin!