Today, Belfast is probably best known as the home of “Game of Thrones” and the newest Titanic Museum, though it has been People have occupied the city occupied since the Bronze Age.
The industrial capital of Northern Ireland has been an official city only since 1888 when Queen Victoria granted that status. Some 40 years later, it would erupt into violence that would not end until the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Though Belfast is mostly peaceful today, it still carries the scars of its violent history, including an almost sinister feeling that hovers just under the surface. Walking through the town past marching band supply shops and pubs named The Crown are sure evidence that the sectarian feelings of the city may have gone underground, but they’re just beneath the surface. The murals that still stand are stark reminders that the Shankhill Butchers and the IRA are not too far in the past.
On the brighter side, Belfast is, of course, home to the shipyard where the Titanic was built and from which the ship launched its fateful maiden journey. And, it has some of the best sushi restaurants available in Ireland.
Giant’s Causeway
Depending on whether you believe mythology or science, Giant’s Cause World Heritage Site was created as a bridge so two giants, one Irish and one Scottish, could fight, or it is a geological wonder consisting of some 40,000 interlocking basalt columns.
Given the appeal of the myth, here’s the story: Irish giant Fionn Macumhaill and even bigger Scottish giant Benandonner had been shouting back and forth across the eight miles that separate Ireland and Scotland near Bushmills. They kept egging one another on with taunts of, “You wanna fight? I’ll fight you,” until finally, they built a causeway connecting their homelands.
Once it was completed, Fionn started strutting toward Scotland, and as he neared, he saw Benadonner in the distance. The giant was giantessimal. He was twice the size of Fionn, so Fionn turned tail and ran all the way home.
When Fionn rushed breathlessly into his house, he told his wife what had happened and begged her to help him hid. A smart woman she was, for she wrapped up Fionn as a baby and laid him in a cradle near the fire.
Benadonner followed somehow, but he lost sight of Fionn, but when he saw a giant’s house not far from the causeway, he figured it had to be Fionn’s. He pounded on the door and demanded to be let in.
Fionn’s wife answered and shushed Benadonner, warning him of what she would do to him if he woke the baby. Then, she politely invited the Scottish giant in for tea and invited him to take the chair by the fire. Bendadonner accepted and crept quietly in, for he dared not wake this woman’s babe.
However, as he neared the fire, he spied the cradle and gasped. If the babe was that big, he thought to himself, how big must the father be?!? And so, Benadonner turned tail and ran all the way back to Scotland, breaking up the causeway as he went.
And that is how the Giant’s Causeway came into being.
Links
Dublin, Newgrange and the Hill of Tara
