Escape To A Castle In A Land Of Giants

We opted to forego Belfast, and spend our time on the rugged and beautiful northern coast of Northern Ireland. As is often the case for us, we had found our inner city lodging in Dublin with less difficulty than we anticipated and, come Monday morning, we couldn't find our way out of the city, which one would think would be easier. We had stopped in one of the million rotaries (roundabout) (traffic circle in an intersection), apparently looking confused... a nice man stopped and rolled down his window and asked if we were lost. Yes. He got us on track and we finally broke free into the Irish countryside... ahhh! That's a relative 'ahhh,' for the driver at least... Ireland's roads are incredibly narrow, with no shoulder, so it takes constant diligence to stay on the road and in your own lane, especially driving a manual transmission on the 'other' side of the road. But we looked forward to spending most of our time in Ireland in more rural settings, and it felt good to be out on our own and free of the big cities for a while.

Our phone wouldn't work, as advertised, in the Republic of Ireland, and we were having a time of it in Northern Ireland... we had to call the owner of the lodging so she could meet us at the place, and finally had to borrow a land line to get specific directions. It was worth the effort, as regards both the lodging and the location. This rental was a real find... a 2 bedroom condo, newly remodeled and furnished, a pet project of the owner, her canvas if you will, on the water with a view... and right on the northern coast road where we wanted to explore in Northern Ireland. And less expensive than a hotel!

Then on Tuesday we had breakfast at the Wee Blue Beach Cafe, and a visit to Dunluce Castle, which played the prominent role in the history and control of this region for hundreds of years. Irish Clans and Scottish Clans, and inter-marrying, and generally pugnacious behavior... Twas ever thus, as the Bard would say. Then, in the afternoon, we visited the Giant's Causeway, where we saw columnar basalt for the second time on our journey, the first being Iceland.

Sorely Boy MacDonnell was a primary player in the power battles of the region for most of the 16th century. He fought the powers that be of the English crown to keep them from kicking his clan out of Ireland. I say this mainly because I like saying Sorely Boy (Jan and I mention him frequently when speaking of quarrelsome people). The MacDonnells are also known, in Scotland, as the MacDonalds. I wonder if Sorely Boy imagined that his clan would one day have the largest fast food franchise in the world?!! More in Wikipedia --->  Dunluce Castle

Perhaps the only benign sword play this castle has ever seen!

We hadn't really planned it but, interestingly, we would spend much of our time in Ireland and Scotland on the Great Glen Fault. We stayed right on Loch Linnhe in Scotland, and on Clew Bay in Ireland, and just a stone's throw from Lough Foyle in Northern Ireland. From Wikipedia:  Aligned northeast to southwest, the Great Glen Fault extends further southwest in a straight line through Loch Linnhe and the Firth of Lorne, and then on into northwestern Ireland, directly through Lough Foyle, Donegal Bay and Clew Bay. To the northeast the fault connects to the Walls Boundary Fault and the associated Melby Fault and Nesting Fault, before becoming obscured by the effects of Mesozoic rifting to the north of Shetland. More on this in Wikipedia --->  Great Glen Fault

From Wikipedia:  The Giant's Causeway (known as Clochán an Aifir or Clochán na bhFomhórach in Irish[1] and tha Giant's Causey in Ulster-Scots)[2] 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 or eight sides. The tallest are about 12 metres (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres (92 ft) thick in places.

According to legend, 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 giants could meet. In one version of the story, Fionn defeats Benandonner. In another, Fionn hides from Benandonner when he realises that his foe is much bigger than he. Fionn's wife, Oonagh, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the 'baby', he reckons 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 could not follow. 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.

Warring clans and warring giants, oh my! Tomorrow we would play it safe and walk across a rope bridge a couple hundred feet above the rocks and water below, from the mainland over to a smaller island.