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 DUNLUCE CASTLE, NORTH ANTRIM COAST, NORTHERN IRELAND.

LAVA ROCKS

 The Legend of Finn McCool  (www.irelandseye.com) whose name Fionn mac Cumhail was an Irish Giant lived on an Antrim headland. One day while tending to his daily business, a Scottish Giant named Fingal began to shout insults and hurl abuse from across the channel. Finn lifted a clod of earth and threw it back at the Giant in anger and it landed in the sea. Fingal retaliated with a rock thrown back at Finn and shouted that Finn was lucky that he wasn't a strong swimmer or he would have made sure he could never fight again !

Finn was enraged and began lifting huge clumps of earth from the shore, throwing them so as to make a pathway for the Scottish Giant to come and face him. However, by the time he finished making the crossing he had not slept for a week and so instead devised a cunning plan to fool the Scot.  Finn disguised himself as a baby in a cot and when his adversary came to face him Finn's wife told the Giant that Finn was away but showed him his son sleeping in the cradle. The Scottish Giant became apprehensive for if the son was so HUGE, what size would the father be?

In haste to escape Fingal sped back along the causeway Finn had built, tearing it up as he went. He is said to have fled to a cave on Staff which is to this day named 'Fingal's cave.' Other versions of the legend include Finn throwing a huge piece of earth which then became the Isle of Man and the hole it left behind became Lough Neagh.

 PHOTOS FROM IRELAND

 John & Phil @ Saint Patrick, Saint Brigid and Saint Columba (a.k.a. Columcille) grave site.

Plaque at the site above (Down District Council Recreation/Tourist Dept. September 1985).