Walking in the Steps of Giants

I arrived in Belfast in the evening. The next morning, I went on a bus tour to Giants Causeway. The bus drove along the North coast, passing through many small coastal villages. There were lots of sheep. We noticed that some of the sheep were spray painted green, orange, red, and blue. Our tour guide explained that "the green and orange sheep are Catholic sheep, and the red and blue sheep are Protestant sheep." This would prove an interesting beginning to my experiences in Northern Ireland.

Giants Causeway is Ireland's only World Heritage Site. It's a massive formation of basalt columns. As our tour guide pointed out, scientists "claim" it was formed by cooling lava from an ancient volcanic eruption, but the true story is that it was built by Finn Mac Cool, an ancient Irish warrior who was himself a giant. There are many wonderful legends about how Giants Causeway was built.

So many rocks! They are a lot of fun to climb around on...

The beautiful Irish coast.

I tried to replicate the famous pictures of the columns, but it was very difficult to get a picture without people in it. It also would have been great to have a sunset, and maybe some fog...

A precarious situation- those rocks aren't wet for nothing. In this picture I'm thinking, "gee, I hope the waves don't come up and soak me..."

Some really tall columns.

Those are some intense waves!

Along the way, we stopped at several small towns. We also made a quick stop at Bushmill's Distillery, where I sampled my first Irish whiskey. The last stop was a cliffside where they had a rope bridge which led to a small island. From the island, there were some incredible views of the coastline and the cliffs. The island was the most peaceful place I've been in Ireland-- we were there right before it began to rain, and everything was just silent, except for the sound of the waves rolling in.

Ah, yes...

In terms of thinking about how landscape can inspire, how it can capture a literary imagination, there was no better place to be than Giants Causeway.