Where giants walked — Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland

There was an Irish giant called Finn McCool, who was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. Finn accepted and built a causeway of huge basalt columns across the North Channel of Northern Ireland, so that the two giants could meet.

This story of course has many versions and in one Finn defeats Benandonner. In another, Finn hides from Benandonner, when he realises that his enemy is much bigger than he is and Finn’s wife disguises Finn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the “baby”, he decides that its father, Finn, must be a giant among giants. He flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him, so that Finn would not be able to follow him. Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns at Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa, and it is possible that the story was influenced by this similarity in geology.

This is just one of the legends that abound all over Ireland — a land of giants and leprechauns. The causeway that Finn Mc Cool created is known as the Giant’s Causeway, in…