The remainder of our time ashore while the ship awaited us back in Belfast would include a drive-by test of tedium and two photo stops.

“Does everyone here like golf?” asked our excursion guide from the front of the bus. We were near the back so may have missed some positive excitement from nearer where she was sitting, but to our ears it sounded like this question was met with silence.

“Who here has heard of the Open Golf Championship?” Yes, we’d heard of it, having not lived our lives to this point in oubliettes, but didn’t feel in any mood to encourage someone who sounded like she was a closet cheerleader for a sport we rank as only marginally less a crime against humanity than Formula 1 and basketball.

“We’re so proud to have hosted the Open!” she positively squealed, as our bus took us past Royal Portrush Golf Club on one side and a static caravan park on the other. “That’s where the TV crews were set up!” she continued, possibly expecting an ooh or an aah. She then mentioned some players’ names, I think, or maybe she described what a hole was. It was golf stuff. The memories of this period on this cruise excursion have slipped from my mind, I’m terribly, terribly sorry to say.

A quick turnaround by the bus had us soon retracing our route to Portrush from the Giant’s Causeway back to a place along the road where we could all get out and take a look at and photograph Dunluce Castle from a distance. It was a nice-looking ruin, and possibly would have looked more foreboding with stormier skies, but the views to it and across the grassland out to sea were very nice and not in any way golf-related which probably disappointed our guide who likely would’ve killed to be able to tell us all how many yards there were to the wall and that we’d probably need a Number 5 Sand-Niblick from here.

Dunluce Castle has existed in some form since the thirteenth century, although the ruins of what you can see these days were additions made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when first the Clan MacDonnell seized Antrim and set about improving the defences and living quarters, and then La Girona of the Spanish Armada was wrecked ashore nearby with great loss of life, a salvageable and sizeable amount of cannons that could be used, and treasures that could be sold to pay for extra work on the structure.

Our final photo stop of the day would be to the Portaneevy Car Park. A car park!? They are spoiling us on this tour! But wait, it’s not the car park that’s the thing to take photos of here, it’s the views from it, and they were definitely worth seeing if you get as giddy as a goat when someone says the magic word “islands” to you.

Looking northwest we could see Carrick-a-Rede, a small island just off the coast of County Antrim, connected to the mainland by a rope bridge. For centuries the gap between the island and the land was a route for salmon to swim through and so local fishermen would rig up netting to catch hundreds per day. By 2002 this was down to a couple of hundred across an entire season thanks to overfishing, nearby pollution, or the salmon finally catching on that they could swim on the other side of the island and not end up on someone’s plate by the end of the day.

To the northeast we could see another island, though one considerably farther away. This was Rathlin Island and it’s the most northerly point of Northern Ireland. Our guide pointed out that the wind and currents in this area often made landing on the island, or even passing through the strait, a very dangerous endeavour. Its small size also belies the fact that it’s been host to some interesting historical events:

• the first Viking raid on Ireland landed on Rathlin;
• Robert the Bruce sought refuge on the island;
• Sir Francis Drake was instrumental in massacring Scottish and Irish refugees in 1575;
• during the first world war, German U-boats struck a naval vessel and a passenger cargo ship off the coast of Rathlin with survivors ending up on the island.

Beyond Rathlin we could see more land on the horizon, and that land turned out to be Scotland. In fact, what we were looking at, and what you’re seeing in the photo below, is the Mull of Kintyre, immortalised or brutalised (opinions differ) by Paul McCartney and Wings in 1977. We’ve had to add this experience to our list of countries we’ve seen from other countries. Us travellers: we’ve got lists of everything.

This concludes the excursion we took through Princess Cruises for our day in Northern Ireland. In the next post in this series I’ll cover the sailaway and evening’s activities on board Sky Princess ahead of our arrival in Liverpool, the final port on this short cruise.

“Is it Giant’s Causeway or Giants’ Causeway?”

“What?”

“Is it Giant apostrophe ess Causeway, or Giants apostrophe Causeway?”

“Is it important?”

“You know how I feel about apostrophes.”

“But is it actually important?”

“I feel it says a lot about a nation if they name something after a type of people or just a descriptive term for a single person when they could have used his or her name. If this was made by a tall fellow called Lenny then he’d probably like it if it was known as Lenny’s Causeway rather than Giant’s Causeway. The latter feels disrespectful. It would be like if they told me that some feature on the website was going to be named in my honour and they only called it Software Developer’s Just Really Horrible Bug instead of using my name.”

“I’m pretty sure Lenny the tall chap did not really build this causeway so it’s not really that important after all, is it?”

We were in Northern Ireland, the second stop on our Sky Princess cruise hitting the UK during the return to cruising following the pandemic. This wasn’t my first visit to the bit of Ireland that England stole as I’d definitely crossed the border once or twice during visits to the Emerald Isle with my family as a kid, but my memory of those events is limited to my mum turning around from the passenger seat in the car to me and my brother and saying “We’re in the crap bit of Ireland now.” I might be making that up. I don’t actually think my mum had any strong feelings about Northern Ireland, and certainly none that she’d want to share with children. Some members of my extensive Irish family did have strong feelings, by all accounts. Probably best I leave that subject where it is.

For my wife, this was her first visit to any part of Ireland. She’s been mentioning for years that she’d love to pop across and to see the bits of the country where my family live (Mayo, since you asked nicely) but I’ve been less keen. It’s not that I’d not love to see Ireland as a photo-happy adult (the last time I was there, I was maybe 19 or 20 and the primary purpose was to get drunk) or that I’d not want my wife to see Ireland; it’s just that if my family found out we were over then we’d be somewhat committed to visit my aunt and my other aunt and my other aunt and my other aunt and that other aunt and that uncle and my cousin and my other cousin and my other cousin and, well, you get the picture.

Taking a cruise to Northern Ireland allowed us to tick off a part of the British Isles that neither of us had truly visited and we’d have a decent excuse of not being near any relatives so therefore could do what we wanted guilt-free. Sky Princess docked at Belfast and we did consider exploring the capital city or taking one of the tours offered there but the lure of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Giant’s Causeway won us over.

Our bus drive from the port had taken place accompanied by some serious rain throughout. We expected that we would be getting wet on this trip, but just as we rolled up to the National Trust-run location on the northern coast the inclement weather ceased. That bus drive had also been accompanied by our local guide telling us a bit about Northern Ireland in her strong, Northern Irish accent. We waited eagerly for any mention of a “fillum” but it wasn’t to be. We did, however, get some strong indications that she was pro-Brexit and already blaming the EU for perceived (yet not described) issues she felt were entirely the result of the foreigners who’d stuck by the letter of the stupid agreement the stupid British government had signed. So, that was lovely.

This was the sort of cruise excursion where you’re left to your own devices. There’s the road to the Giant’s Causeway. Go down. Take a look. Take some photos. Try not to kill yourself on the rocks. Meet back at the bus at this time. We did all those things.

The road down to the Giant’s Causeway was not as steep as we feared, nor even quite as long as we’d worried about. The walk was easy enough even though we set off at a decent pace to maximise time at the historic landmark (and because we were concerned that walking back up would take longer) and the views out to sea and of the shoreline rocks and hilly formations afforded plenty of chances for snapping away.

Audio guides are available and there are spots along the walk where the signs indicate what you should be listening to. This might be some geological information or just a bit of storytelling. I didn’t take an audio guide because it would have got tangled up in my camera straps and I’d have required resuscitation following accidental strangulation. It’s a constant fear of mine.

You’ll know that you’ve reached the Giant’s Causeway when you see a large mass of brightly-coloured tourists standing with arms stretched out or looking back coyly over their shoulders so that other people can take Instagram-worthy photos. The mostly hexagonal columns of basalt are another sure sign you’re in the right spot.

How was the Giant’s Causeway formed? Well, there are two answers to this: the fable and the truth. The truth is that, like basalt columns the world over, they were formed following volcanic activity and rapid cooling that caused cracks to create the shapes you see today. The hexagon is a naturally-occurring form as its edges form the shortest lengths between horizontal layers where weaknesses are offset vertically. You’ll see it in drying mud and in overlapping soap bubble formations and in the storm at Saturn’s north pole. Similar basalt rock formations exist on the coastline of Scotland, and we visited some on the south coast of Iceland at Reynisfjara in 2018.

The fable that lends the Giant’s Causeway its name is that Fionn mac Cumhaill (or Finn MacCool if you can’t pronounce Gaelic (and nobody can)) built the causeway from Ireland to Scotland in order to fight a giant there, Benandonner. Fionn, having built the causeway, is therefore a giant himself in this tale (hence the important apostrophe), although historically he’s supposed to have been a human warrior-hunter. While Fionn supposedly had a magic thumb of knowledge (early form of Smartphone) this didn’t bestow him with supersize powers so the giant size of him in this story is one we’ll just have to credit to authors employing retcons, although there is a suggestion that an older Irish mythology of the Fomorians – who were supposedly giants – got mixed up here somehow. Regardless, in one version of the Giant’s Causeway legend, and the version that our tour guide told us, Fionn realised that Benandonner was larger than he was so rather than fight him he dressed as a baby and got his wife Sadhbh to tell Benandonner that Fionn was actually Fionn’s son. Benandonner then assumed Fionn would be too huge to fight so destroyed the causeway between the countries. Using brain to defeat brawn.

My wife didn’t venture too far onto the 50 million years old rock formations because she’s got a history of falling over things. I did better than her, wandering about a bit but still not so far out as many people there. That rain that had fallen, plus spray from the breaking waves on the coast, coupled with the value of the photographic equipment I was carrying lent me a certain caution lacking in others.

We’d had more than enough time to see what we wanted to see and to experience this natural wonder on this excursion stop, so decided to head back up the inclined road towards the Giant’s Causeway visitor centre ahead of most of those in our tour group. We knew we’d be a bit slower heading up than down, we’d have a chance to use the toilets without that crowd of people who’d fled there immediately upon disembarking the bus, and we’d be able to see if we could find any souvenirs before it was time to set off. And, of course, loads more photos, some of them even of different things than I’d shot on the way down.

A few purchases in the gift shop and some brightening weather concluded our trip to see the Giant’s Causeway. We spent a little time by the bus, waiting for everyone to arrive and admiring the views across the Antrim countryside. We enjoyed noticing that the paving stones were hexagonal; an appropriate choice for this location. The remainder of this excursion would see us hit a few photo stops before returning to Sky Princess as Belfast and that will be covered in the next part of this cruise travelogue series: County Antrim Coastline.