Giant's Causeway

Giant's Causeway, United Kingdom

Hexagonal basalt columns at Giant's Causeway bathed in golden sunset light, with tourists walking along the cliff path in the distance.

The Giant's Causeway is a field of hexagonal basalt columns on the Antrim coast, made by lava cooling and cracking over millions of years.

The place

The Giant's Causeway sits on the north coast of Northern Ireland, in County Antrim, a few miles northeast of the village of Bushmills. What greets you first is a broad slope of dark basalt columns, most of them six-sided, though some have four sides and others as many as eight. Their flat tops form a path that runs down from the cliff foot and disappears under the sea, so at low tide you can walk out over stones that look as though they were laid by hand. Behind them the cliffs rise in layers of solidified lava, up to 28 metres thick in places. The site draws a steady crowd from across Northern Ireland and beyond. The National Trust looks after much of it, along with the wider Causeway Coast World Heritage Site, and the rock has been protected for decades. The walk down to the columns is free, and you do not have to pass through the paid visitor centre to reach them. Summer brings a busy car park and queues at the best viewpoints, so arriving early or staying into the late afternoon makes a real difference. Walk the cliff paths in both directions, because each bay shows the columns from a new angle, and the sea moving between them changes the picture with every tide.

Its story

The Giant's Causeway became a subject of scientific argument before it became a tourist destination. A bishop from Derry visited the shore, and a Dublin scholar soon presented a description to the Royal Society in London, which carried the site to an international audience. Susanna Drury, a Dublin artist, then painted watercolours of the columns; they won her an award and were later engraved. Those engravings found their way into the French Encyclopédie, and a caption to one of its plates made the claim, new in print, that such columns were volcanic in origin. The geology is the story of molten basalt forced up through chalk and spreading across a broad plateau. As the lava cooled it contracted, cracking downward into columns much as drying mud cracks, and then fracturing across into stacked segments. The speed of cooling set the column size, with slower cooling producing larger ones. Visitors came in growing numbers in the Victorian era, helped by a tramway along the coast. Brazil's emperor Pedro II made a visit during a short tour of Ireland. Today the telling is shared between the National Trust and the visitor centre, though the rocks have been doing their work far longer than any of the stories about them.

What to see

Culture

The Giant's Causeway is a natural site rather than a religious or heritage building, so the etiquette is mostly about the rock and the people sharing it. The columns are slippery, often wet with spray, and the cliff paths can be treacherous when the weather turns. The National Trust looks after the site and asks visitors to keep to marked routes so that the cliffs and vegetation are not damaged. Walkers, families and photographers all share the same few viewpoints, so it helps to step aside when a group wants a clear view. Local stories about Finn McCool are told with a laugh, and it is fine to join in, but nobody expects a performance. The Wishing Chair and the stepping stones attract hopeful children and the occasional daredevil, so let others have their turn. Eating and drinking are best kept for the cafés by the car park or the eateries in Bushmills, not for the rocks. Keep off the cliff edges above the sea, leave the stones where they lie, and take your litter back with you.

What to wear

The Giant's Causeway itself has no dress of its own, so the traditional textiles around it come from the wider north of Ireland. Linen is the local thread: Northern Ireland's linen industry spun and wove flax for generations, and linen is still the cloth people here associate with hard-wearing work clothes and good tablecloths. Knitwear is the other strand. Aran jumpers, cabled in undyed wool, belong to the islands off the west coast, while the heavier Donegal tweed woven in the north-west is a favourite for outdoor wear. People on the coast today dress much as they do anywhere in the UK: waterproof jackets, fleeces, jeans and walking trainers, with a wool hat when the wind comes off the sea. Visitors should plan for wind and rain more than heat, and dress in layers that can be taken off on the cliff path. Wear shoes with real grip, because the basalt is wet and slippery even on a fine day, and a waterproof shell is more useful than an umbrella on the exposed headlands. There is no formal dress code at the site, but modest, practical clothing suits a visit to the village churches and the distillery in Bushmills.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. Late spring and summer are the most comfortable months for the cliff walk, when the paths are drier and the light lasts into the evening. Winter brings wind and spray, and the rocks stay slippery whatever the season, so pack for wet weather at any time of year.

How long. 1–2

Getting there. Fly into Belfast, then take the direct Goldline bus from Belfast Laganside or Donegall Square. It runs daily and takes about an hour and a half via Ballymena and Bushmills. Alternatively, take the train to Coleraine and a coastal bus; the last leg is the coast road, and you get off at the Giant's Causeway stop, a short ride past Bushmills.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources