The Giant Legend of Northern Ireland

by Takeo Maebashi
(Tokyo, Japan)

The Giant's Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Northern Ireland's most visited tourist attraction. Owned and managed by the National Trust, it is an area of about 40,000 basalt columns, the natural result of rapidly cooling lava from a volcanic explosion 50 million years ago.

Of course, with Ireland being the land of story tellers, there is also a romantic legend to explain the presence of such unusual rock formations. The legend says that the causeway was built by the giant Finn McCool as a means of crossing the Irish Sea to Scotland to fight his Scottish adversary.

Before, I had the image of Northern Ireland as a dangerous place (terrorism, IRA), but this story makes me want to go there!