Photography

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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Carrick-A-Rede Rope Bridge

Back in April of this year, I took a beautiful day trip excursion to the Giant’s Causeway with my friend Jacqui and her long time friend, Liz. The northern coast of Eire is a different country (Northern Ireland is a part of the UK) and it took us about 3 hours to drive from here in Dublin up through Belfast before we hit the coast road.

Blue blue blue

While up in Northern Ireland, one of the places that we stopped was the National Trust site at Carrick-a-Rede. Now this place doesn’t sound too scary – Carrick is Irish for “Rock in the road”. That is, until I tell you that the place has had a rope suspension bridge of some form connecting the Irish “mainland” to the island of Carrick for some 250 years. Originally built for Salmon fisherman who caught salmon that went around the edge of the Carrick (not anymore as the salmon are gone) as they headed inland to spawn, the rope bridge has now been taken over by the National Trust and is now part of a national park.

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The rope bridge is there and now a tourist attraction. It spans 20 meters across from the mainland to the isle of Carrick, across two sheer cliff faces – to rocks and shallow sea some 30 meters (230 feet) below. Now for someone (me) with a fear of falling (me) it’s a beautiful view as you hike up along the cliff tops… and stand in line to cross the rope bridge, up to 6 at a time.

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The crossing itself, however, is completely different.
That's not a smile, that's a grimace...

You climb down a series of metal stairs and then line up to go across the bridge with thin planking and ropes holding together for your hands. The rope bridge bounces as people go across, and swings slightly in the wind. Yes, I crossed, but let me tell you, this is NOT a smile. This is a grimace, and I’m repeating to myself “don’t look down” “don’t look down” “don’t look down” so that I don’t freeze mid-bridge.

Once across, the island of Carrick isn’t very big. It’s maybe 200 meters long, but it affords some gorgeous views of the salt spray, the cliffs, and some birds and fauna that are specific to the island itself. It even inspired me to throw caution to the wind, enjoy some sun, watch the waves breaking through the island caves…

Island Cave tunnel 3

and hang my feet over the cliff edge….

Danger!!

Ok so not really. There’s a ledge under my feet, but I had you there for a minute, right?!?

And so, from me .. until the next blog…I stand at the edge of Europe, thinking of you folks “across the pond”.

The edge of Europe... and a cliff.

For more pictures from Carrick-a-rede, please see my flickr set here.

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