Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. Date Taken on 28 May 2005

The Giant's Causeway, located on Northern Ireland's north coast near Bushmills, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring roughly 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, created by volcanic activity 50–60 million years ago. Famed for the legend of Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill, it is a top visitor attraction with walking trails and dramatic coastline views.

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 some have four, five, seven, or eight sides.The tallest are approximately 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 ft) thick in places.

Legend

A View of the Giant's Causeway: East Prospect. Engraving 1768

According to legend, a form of geomyth, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant. The story goes that the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool), from the Fenian Cycle of Gaelic mythology, was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two could meet. In one version of the story, Fionn defeats Benandonner.[14] Another common telling of the story has Fionn hide from Benandonner when he realises that his foe is much bigger than he is. Fionn's wife, Sadhbh, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the "baby", he imagines that its father, Fionn, must be a giant among giants. He flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Fionn would be unable to chase him down.[15] Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns (a part of the same ancient lava flow) at Fingal's Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa, and it is possible that the story was influenced by this.

Overall, in Irish mythology, Fionn mac Cumhaill is not a giant, but a hero with supernatural abilities, contrary to what this particular legend may suggest. In Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888), it is noted that, over time, "the pagan gods of Ireland [...] grew smaller and smaller in the popular imagination until they turned into the fairies; the pagan heroes grew bigger and bigger until they turned into the giants".[17] There are no surviving pre-Christian stories about the Giant's Causeway, but it may have originally been associated with the Fomorians (Fomhóraigh);[18] the Irish name Clochán na bhFomhóraigh or Clochán na bhFomhórach means "stepping stones of the Fomhóraigh". The Fomhóraigh are a race of mythological beings in Irish mythology who were sometimes described as giants and who may have originally been deities among a pre-Christian pantheon.[19]

Letitia Elizabeth Landon comments on these mythological associations in her notes to The Giant's Causeway., a poetical illustration to a painting by Thomas Mann Baynes.

See Also

Newgrange

Ireland

Tuatha Dé Danann

Triskelion

Trinity Gates

King Arthur

Planetary Gates