The Legend of The Giant’s Causeway

It is well known that the Irish are fantastic storytellers, so it is no wonder a rock formation over 60 million years old would have a story involving mythical giants attached to it.

The tale of the Giant’s Causeway involves two giants. One from Scotland called Benandonner and one from Ireland called Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool). On clear days you can see Scotland across the water, as at its closest point Scotland is only 15 miles off the coast.

Now these two giants despised each other, they would constantly be screaming at one another from their respective countries. That was until one day when they decided it was finally time to fight it out, they wanted to earn the title of ‘The Strongest Giant’ and ‘The Biggest Giant’. Finn decided to start building a pathway between the two countries, so he start by throwing these massive hexagonal rocks into the water. Each stone connecting perfectly in the water to create The Giant’s Causeway.

Finn began to walk around the causeway towards Benandonner but as he got closer, he realized that the Scottish giants was MUCH bigger than he was. Afraid of having to fight him, Finn ran back to his home in County Kildare where he begged his wife for help. His wife told him to dress up as a baby and to get into the baby cot and wait there. Benandonner came running down the causeway looking for Finn and when he got to his house Finn’s wife answered the door and said that Finn wasn’t there at the moment but he would be back shortly and asked in Benandonner would like to wait for him inside. Once he got inside he saw the baby cot and he didn’t need to get close to notice that inside was a MASSIVE baby and he thought to himself ‘if this is the size of the baby, how big must his Father be.’ Not wanting to wait and find out, Benandonner ran out of the house and ran back to Scotland tearing up the causeway as he went so Finn could not follow.

If you go to Scotland you will see the other end of the causeway, and the Scottish will tell you the exact same story as above, although they tell you it the other way around. But the Irish story is the correct version of course!

The Giant’s Causeway had just under 1 million visitors in 2019 making it one of Northern Ireland’s top visitor attractions. There are multiple day trips to the Giant’s Causeway from Belfast that leave daily. Decide for yourself if it was in fact built by giants.