Northern Ireland

Dunseverick castle ruins

Dunseverick castle ruins
This way to Dunsverick Castle

Last April, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz to see the coast of Northern Ireland. I happened to have a map with us (let’s just say we had an adventure in getting there because the GPS ran out of battery) and we ended up taking the scenic route on the way up. One there, we saw the Giant’s Causeway, and decided to pause for the other very close by sites. I would have to say that the most unimpressive site was the castle ruins at Dunsverick Castle.

Dunseverick castle ruins

Basically, this castle was built originally sometime around 1525 BC. Surrounded by the ocean on three sides,Dunseverick was a key ancient site in Ireland, one of the royal roads from Tara, seat of the Kings of Ireland ended here. The site was originally founded by Sobairce, one of the Kings who built a fortress here to rule the ancient Kingdom of Dariada, the location is named after him – Dunsobairce (Fortress of Sobairce) now Dunseverick. Around 500 AD, St. Patrick visited the location, and around 900 AD, the Vikings are said to have raided the fortress extensively. Sometime around the 1500’s AD, a small fortress with round tower was built on the spit of land, and these are the remains that are there today. (There are also sheep, who apparently are great climbers down one steep drop and up to the top of that spit of land…)

Dunseverick castle ruins
All that remains of a once impressive fortress… time and tide wait for no man…

You can see more photos on the Giant’s Causeway flickr set here.

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Giant’s Causeway

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Far on the north coast of Ireland is an area of about 40,000 interlocking naturally occuring basalt columns. They were caused by a volcanic eruption, and is a Unesco world heritage site. Last April, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz to see this fascinating place.

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The causeway itself is actually an area of several horse-shoe shaped inlets which can be reached by a cliff top walk, a hike down a series of 162 steep stairs (known as the shephards steps), or a cheeky little bus taken from the Giant’s causeway hotel. On the way down, we chose to take the cliff walk/stairs – and then the bus back – because the weather was so beautiful. We went past the Pipe Organ (below), and into a giant bowl shaped area known as the Ampitheater.

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On the way back we passed the Giant’s Boot, pipe, and also his Camel. According to Irish legend, the Irish warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Benandonner. At some point, tired of waiting, the Scottish Giant came across the water, and somehow, Fionn found out. Realizing that the scottish giant was larger than he himself, Fionn asked his wife to dress him up as a baby. When Benandonner saw the baby, he thought that Fionn must be a truly large giant indeed (because of the size of the baby) and fled back to Scotland, leaving his boot and pipe behind him on the beach.

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Jacqui and Liz posing on the boot…

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Looking out towards the pipe stem
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The Camel, sleeping after the long walk (Giants need something larger than a horse, apparently)

You can see more photos on the Giant’s Causeway flickr set here.

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DunLuce Castle Ruins

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Just before sunset, back in April, as part of our day trip around Northern Ireland, Jacqui, Liz and I popped along the coast road in the hopes of making it up to DunLuce castle ruins. This is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cliff face castles that spans its own small island and then connects to the mainland by a bridge and dual gatehouses. I have to say that it was great for photographs, and because of the “Sweet light” hours that we made it, we got some neat shadow pictures too.

DunLuce-hilltop

The first castle was built on the site sometime in the 1200’s, high up on the cliffs on the coast. Prior to this, there may have been an ancient fort here as well. The remnants of which can be seen in the two round towers, 30 foot in diameter.

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The first documented castle on the site was built in 1513, by the McQuillin family, using the remains of prior structures. It was updated in 1584, after a change of hands to Scottish lords, to the latest Scottish styles, adding the gatehouses and separate kitchens.

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According to a history, sometime after 1584, part of the cliff face collapsed into the sea and took down the kitchen buildings with it. Supposedly, only one lucky kitchen boy survived – because he was sitting in the corner of the kitchen which remained. At that time, the wife of the owner declared she would no longer live there.

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Sometime after 1690, the family owners lost their funds and the castle fell into disrepair.

Today, the castle is a privately owned tourist site, where you can walk around parts of the old castle grounds and down a steep set of stairs to look up at the castle above. Under the castle is a water carved cave (smugglers cove anyone)

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and a neat archway which allows for some great sunset silhouettes (and shadows.)

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For a virtual tour, please see:

www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/places/monuments/dunluce.shtml

To see more of my flickr set of DunLuce, please click here.

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