posted by Traveller on Sep 29
The Giant’s Causeway, which is located at the northern coast of Northern Ireland, is Ireland’s only World Heritage site. It has one of the most remarkable rock formations which are made up of 37,000 dark hexagonal shape columns standing beneath the grey cliffs of northern Antrim. Northern Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway consists of the Little Causeway, Middle Causeway and Grand Causeway. Interestingly, looking from the sky, the shape of the Grand Causeway resembles the tail of a lizard.
According to a legend, these hexagonal rocks were actually placed by a giant called Finn 
MacCool. He placed the rocks there to form a bridge which spans across the sea and reaches the island Staffa in Scotland. There are similar columns found in Scotland. This bridge served as a walkway for the woman he loved who was staying at the island of Staffa. He provided this walkway for her to get across to him without getting her feet wet. The giant, Finn MacCool, indeed showed his deep love for this woman by building this bridge so that she could reach him with ease, comfort and convenience. At the tip of the Middle Causeway, there is a rocky seat which is known as the Wishing Chair. It was told that this chair was made for the giant, Finn MacCool, when he was a child. As the legend says, all wishes made by anyone at the Wishing Chair will come true. Perhaps, the giant had wished before that he could build the causeway one day and his wish had come true!
The geologists, however, have come up with some explanations about the existence of these amazing rock formations. According to them, these formations were created about 60 million years ago due to massive volcanic eruptions. The layer of tholeiitic basalt lava cooled rapidly causing the rocks to crack into polygonal-shaped blocks. At the end of the Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, the sea water eroded the foreshore, thus forming the Giant’s Causeway today.