Page 200 - WDT MAGAZINE IRELAND ISSUE WINTER 2018

“Our roots are our roots, and we can’t resist
the temptation to dig them up and examine
them, and that is what I did...”

because a similar basalt formation, Fingal’s Cave, ex- traction to the Fionn mac Cumhaill fable. The basalt
ists on the shore of the Scottish Isle of Staffa, directly columns here are extraordinarily popular, attracting
across the water. In one version of the legend, Fionn visitors from around the globe. And they are indestruct-
mac Cumhaill is confronted by a Scottish giant, Benan- ible, so people can scamper on them to their heart’s
donner, who flees back to Scotland and wrecks the content. Benandonner may no longer be a threat, but
causeway behind him, which is why two nearly identi- the sea can swallow an errant wader who skids off the
cal formations took shape directly across the sea from slick rock.
each other. So goes the fable, anyway. From the Giant’s Causeway we drove west to Derry,
Speaking geologically, the columns have nothing known also as Londonderry.
to do with giants but are frozen lava that cooled and Derry dates to medieval times and is the only com-
contracted, giving them their hexagonal shape. Such pletely walled city remaining in Ireland. The wall dates
columns occur in many places around the world, but to the 17th century and makes a complete one-mile
a unique characteristic of these Irish columns is they loop around the city. This balustrade was successful in
fade into the sea like stepping stones, giving slippery withstanding several sieges, and a row of cannon sits

200 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018