Today we are meeting a tour that will take us to the Giant’s Causeway along with the Titanic Museum at the end. Called Finn McCool’s tours, after the legendary Irish giant of the same name who allegedly built the Giant’s Causeway, the tour actually originates in Dublin with a quick pick up stop here in Belfast. Works for us, as we had originally looked at it from Dublin, but this makes much more sense – 3 hours less on a bus full of strangers. Yep. Makes more sense!

Patrick, our tour guide is a hoot – he was in the music business, but the pandemic put him out of work until his ex-wife saw an ad for a tour guide and suggested he interview. Voila! Here he is – with an incredible knowledge of history and locations and of course music. And as such this is now a music tour! Everything Patrick talks about is associated with a song (i.e., he plays Stairway to Heaven, because Led Zeppelin shot the album cover at Giant’s Causeway). Pretty fun since we’ll now have music throughout our 2 hour drive to Giant’s Causeway.  

Many more songs and many more legends and tales are told on our drive, none of which we remember – but it was fun. The scenery is the stunning Irish farmland stretching as far as the eye can see – and just staring out the window at all the green keeps us pretty occupied all morning.

We have a couple of stops along the way to the Causeway, both in Dunluce. The first just for the gorgeous dramatic coastline, the second for the Dunluce Castle ruins, majestically perched on a point overlooking the ocean. Built in the 16th and 17th century, the castle was inhabited by two feuding clans over the years. Built by the McQuillan clan, it was seized by the MacDonnell clan in the 1500s who kept power over the area with a reign of terror. Eventually they were thrown out and the castle became the seat of the earls of Antrim in the 1600s. So picturesque.

A little before 11am, we finally arrive at the Causeway and are given an hour and a half or so of free time to wander and explore. Not a lot of time, but we’ll make it work. Again – you can’t beat the scenery. Marvelously green with rocky, craggy cliffs dropping dramatically into the ocean.

It is a fairly long walk down to the actual “causeway,” which are hexagonal columns placed in what appears to be a bridge-like fashion. The story goes that another Giant, Benandonner, who lived across the Irish Sea in Scotland threatened Ireland. Finn McCool decided to fight him and started throwing rocks into the ocean to create a bridge to reach Benandonner. However, Benandonner ends up being a much bigger giant, massive in fact, and Finn decides to save himself by going back to Ireland disguised as a baby. Benandonner of course comes looking for Finn, but when he arrives, all he sees is a baby (Finn) and thinks that if the baby is that big now, he will be even more massive than Benandonner when he grows up. so Benandonner retreats back to Scotland, toot sweet, and on his way he destroys as much of the Causeway as he can to protect himself from the massive baby Giant.   

That’s the story! Gotta love Legends and old Irish Lore! Regardless of how this place was formed, it really is quite a sight to behold. But there are tons of people down here – not just from our bus, but from other tours and on their own, crawling all over the rocks and walking around. It would be great to do this on our own and get here first thing to explore without all the people – but obviously that’s not happening, so we just enjoy what we can see, walk a little ways along the path by the water, the turn back for the visitor’s center, the bathrooms and food!

Back up near where we are to meet the bus, we duck into The Nook Restaurant, a traditional Irish pub at the entrance to the Causeway. Cozying in for beer and wine, we decide not to eat as we have snacks with us on the bus and we had a big breakfast, but we do enjoy the warmth – did I mention it is freezing here? – and the drinks and end up chatting with some other customers who are there as well. Final restroom stop, and we’re ready to board the bus for our return journey to Belfast.