The Giant’s Causeway is an area of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. In a 2005 poll, the Giant’s Causeway was named as the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom.  Our children were 9 and 11 when we were first here and they loved clambering around on the columns.

The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the foot of the cliff and disappear into the sea.  Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides. The tallest are about 12 meters (39 ft) high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 meters (92 ft) thick in places.

Much of the Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast World Heritage Site is today owned and managed by the National Trust and it is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Northern Ireland. Access to the Giant’s Causeway is free of charge: it is not necessary to go via the visitors center, which charges a fee.The design of the Visitor’s Center obviously mimics the columns of the Causeway.  This  building  was  not  here  in  1986. I couldn’t remember the details of the legend we had been told on our first visit so I looked it up on the internet.  You just have to love Google!  “According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant. The story goes that the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool), from the Fenian Cycle of Gaelic mythology, was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner.  Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two giants could meet. In one version of the story, Fionn defeats Benandonner.  In another, Fionn hides from Benandonner when he realizes that his foe is much bigger than he is. Fionn’s wife, Oonagh, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the ‘baby’, he reckons that its father, Fionn, must be a giant among giants. He flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Fionn would be unable to chase him down. Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns (a part of the same ancient lava flow) at Fingal’s Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa, and it is possible that the story was influenced by this.” The pathway goes around the cove and over to the cliff side columns.  This big set is called the Pipe Organ. There was a bit of Irish mist, but the rain wasn’t too bad so we still enjoyed our walk around. It was really nice to be back at this amazing place. The causeway disappears into the North Sea. It was getting late by the time we were ready to leave and the sun was beginning to set.  It  cast  such  a pretty  yellow  shade. We arrived back at Clenahagn’s at 7 pm, had some supper and went to bed satisfied with our wonderful day in Northern Ireland.

The next day, July 30 was our last day.  Colin came over in the morning and we went into the town of Markethill and did some window shopping .  We returned to our apartment mid-afternoon. and had dinner in Clenaghan’s pub.  We checked out the next morning and drove to Belfast International Airport to catch our plane home, only to find were at the wrong airport!  By then we had returned our rental car and were stranded.  One of the Customer Service Volunteers hailed a taxi driven by a friend of his and told him our problem.  We were assured we would arrive at the Belfast City Airport in time to make our flight.  We did – just – and only because he drove like a mad fool to get us there.  Whew.

So, finally our trip to Scotland to attend our son’s July 22 wedding had ended.  We left home May 31; took a 17-day Baltic cruise, spent a week in London, and then toured around Scotland for over three weeks.  We attended the wedding and then spent a week in Northern Ireland before returning home July 30.  Now that was a great way to “go to a wedding!”

This is my final catch-up blog.  I have now written a blog series about all of the long trips, either by cruise ship or by road, that we have taken since we retired in 2007.  Hopefully, there will be some new journeys to write about in the future. Thanks for coming along.

Our first main stop on the drive up the Antrim coast was at Torr Head which was a lovely viewpoint.

There were just enough clouds and blue sky to make all the lovely greens of Ireland show beautifully. Heather grows and blooms in the most rugged places. I love the gloomy clouds on the horizon in this shot. This mule was very curious as we drove past. When we drove this coast with our friend Colin in 1986 we stopped at Carrick-a-Rede Bridge, which was traditionally a rope bridge strung across the rocks during salmon fishing season.  It became a popular jaunt for people to cross and was made ‘permanent’ for tourists to use.  Since we were there in ’86 the pathway, stairway, and bridge have been upgraded from the dirt path, rugged rocks, single slat base and plain ropes for handholds that we had used to make the crossing.   Now the access and the bridge are much more stable.

Fishermen still use the area during salmon season and the boats are brought up onto the rocks during the off-season. There is a large sign that says “No more than six people on the bridge at one time.”  This was ignored by most people.  When I was crossing a large family group just tromped onto the bridge after me. There is not much left Dunseverick Castle. Our next stop was the Giant’s Causeway, which has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site since our last visit.

I was woken at 6:30 am by water pouring out of the ceiling light fixture onto my legs and the bed.  Apparently it was coming from the upstairs shower.  By the time we got things mopped up we decided to just stay up. We left at 10:30 to go north up the Antrim Coast – a very scenic drive. We remembered this section of the road.  The kids had a great time climbing on all the huge white rocks. One must marvel at the width of some of the roads. This is a main coastal road and yet it is just barely two lanes wide.  I don’t believe I would ever tire of the myriad shades of green in Ireland!  I love this country.

Northern Ireland  also  has  its  share  of  castle  and  abbey  ruins.

We went to Northern Ireland after our son’s wedding to visit our good friend Colin and his family.  The majority of our time was spent doing just that.

On the 26th we lazed around our apartment and uploaded wedding photos for the folks at home to see.  On the 27th, Colin took some time off work and came to visit for a few hours.  After he left in the afternoon. we took a drive to locate his church where we would be attending service the next day.  We had been there before, but we were staying in a different part of the country from the last time, so we needed to find the route and note the driving time. The  church  hall  is  located  across  the  street  and  had  been  built  since  our  last  visit.July 28 was Sunday so we attended church, then went home with Colin’s wife while he went to his second church to do the service.  When Colin go home we all had lunch and then went to visit Cathy’s parents, after which we went to visit Coin’s parents whom we had stayed with when we came over in 1994 for Colin and Cathy’s wedding. Colin and Cathy’s little dog liked John.  Once again it was after 10 PM by the time we got back to our apartment. The next day was our only touring day.  We took a drive up the Antrim Coast.  A trip we had taken with Colin in 1986 on our first visit to Northern Ireland.  It was grand to see all the sights again.

Our last day in Edinburgh (July 24) was spent lazily.  We met with our daughter and her husband for lunch, checked the trains to Glasgow for them as they were flying home from there, checked out of our spacious apartment and drove to the airport for our short flight to Belfast, Northern Ireland.

We have a dear friend in Northern Ireland.  We met him in 1980 when he came to our town as a student minister to help our church with their summer youth programs.  He stayed at our house for four months and returned to BC for a visit in 1982.  Our family visited him in 1986 and we were back again in 1994 when John was Best Man at Colin’s wedding.  Since we were in Scotland for Joseph’s wedding we decided we were much too close to Northern Ireland to not go visit him and his family.

The flight is only about an hour. We had a bit of a problem at the airport when we went to check in.  Our travel agent had booked all our flights for the trip and we did not know that the airline we were to fly on was a quick commuter that only allowed one carry-on bag.  John and I each had three – me with my purse, my camera bag and my carry-on and John with his carry-on, camera bag and laptop.  We were told we had to consolidate everything into one bag before we could board; which really doesn’t make a lot of sense because the combined weight of the items is the same whether they are in one place or three, but whatever.  Well, of course there was not room in our carry-on bags for our other items.  I eventually just told the staff to take our checked bags off the plane and we would make new arrangements to fly on another airline.  They didn’t want to do that either.  The upshot was that the plane was fully boarded and waiting for us before the check-in lady called the captain and received permission for us to get on with all our extra pieces.  If we had know about the carry-on restriction in advance we would have packed differently, but we didn’t know.  It would have been no problem for us to get a different flight another time, but, even though they wouldn’t let us on board because we had too many carry-on items, they also wouldn’t take our checked bags off so we could take a different airline.  Sometimes traveling can be quite interesting.

We had rented a place with a full-kitchen for the week we would be in Northern Ireland, so once we had  deplaned we picked up our rental car and set off to find the place.Clenaghan’s is not in a town. It is in farm country and used to be a farm. All the buildings are made of stone.  The building on the corner is the local pub.  We were located around the back in a very quiet corner unit. The doorway in the corner near the red flowers is the entrance to our place.  The two  doors  below  also  access  rental  units,  but  we  didn’t  see  anyone  in  them  while  we  were  there. We settled in and called our friend to let him know we had arrived.  He and his wife and two children came over the next day and we all took the train to Belfast and had an enjoyable time at The Titanic Experience.  The ship had been built in Northern Ireland.  By the time we arrived back at  Clenaghan’s and our friends left it was 10 pm. It was wonderful to see Colin and Cathy again and to meet the children.  We had a great first day in Northern Ireland.

After we finished walking around Jedburgh we headed back toward Edinburgh, making a couple of stops.  The first was at the Rhymer’s Stone,  which  is  just  outside  the  town  of  Melrose.Rhymer’s Stone is a combination memorial stone and viewpoint.  It was erected in 1929 by the Melrose Literary Society and marks the spot on which the fabled Eildon Tree once grew. It was under this tree that Thomas the Rhymer took a fateful nap while hunting on the estate of Melrose Abbey. He was awakened by the Queen of Elfland, who he kissed. He then spent seven years with her in the Land of the Elves before returning to his home in Earlston for seven years, then disappearing for good: presumably back to the Land of the Elves. Thomas Rhymer was also known as “True Thomas.”  He was born in 1220 and had a reputation for making accurate predictions; including the death of Alexander III falling from a horse in 1286.  He was also said to have several supernatural powers to rival the great magician Merlin.

Next, we drove into Melrose and visited the Abbey.St Mary’s Abbey, Melrose is a partialy ruined monastery of the Cistercian order in the Scottish Borders. It was founded in 1136 by Cistercian monks at the request of King David I of Scotland, and was the chief house of that order in the country until the Reformation. The east end of the abbey was completed in 1146. Other buildings in the complex were added over the next 50 years. The abbey was built in the Gothic manner, and in the form of a St. John’s Cross. It never ceases to boggle my mind that these enormous and beautiful structures were all built with hand tools and simple wooded scaffolding!  Absolutely astounding. Alexander II and other Scottish kings and nobles are buried at the abbey.  A lead container believed to hold the embalmed heart of Robert the Bruce was found in 1921 below the Chapter House site; it was found again in a 1998 excavation. This was documented in records of his death. The rest of his body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey. We headed back to Edinburgh, arriving just after 6 pm and checked into our unit at the Playhouse Apartments.  We were staying for just the one night but the place was outfitted for a crowd to live in for weeks.  There were 4 bedrooms containing one king-size bed, 7 single beds, two sets of bunk beds and three hide-a-bed sofas in the living room.  The place was equipped with two refrigerators, one freezer,  and three full bathrooms.  Our daughter and her husband had another unit in the same complex and they too had several rooms.  Nothing in the information indicated the size of these places when we booked them and the price was that of a regular hotel room.  We could have housed half the wedding guests between the two apartments.  You encounter the strangest things sometimes when you travel.

My mother was born in Scotland and her maiden name was Young Her parents emigrated to Canada in 1930, when my mother was only 8 1/2 months old.

According to the internet: “The name Young in Scotland is synonymous with Younger, which was used to describe the heir to a feudal title.  Earliest records of the name in Scotland include Malmor and Ade Young who appear at Dumbarton in 1271.  In 1439 Alexander Young was chaplain to the House of the Holy Trinity in Aberdeen.  Peter Young became assistant preceptor to the three-year-old James VI of Scotland, upon the recommendation of the Regent Moray in 1569.   He was knighted at Whitehall in 1605. Sir Peter Young had a large family and many of them rose to enjoy royal patronage.”

Clan Young no longer has a hereditary chief so it is considered an armigerous clan. Wikipedia defines an armigerous clan as: “A Scottish clan, family or name which is registered with the Court of the Lord Lyon and once had a chief who bore undifferenced arms, but does not have a chief currently recognized as such by Lyon Court. Before 1745 all chiefs had arms; however, not all of these are recorded in the Public Register of All Arms and Bearings in Scotland, which was only established in 1672.

In Scottish heraldry only chiefs or heads of clans, families, or names bear undifferenced arms. A clan is considered a “noble incorporation” because a clan chief is a title of honour in Scotland and the chief confers his or her noble status onto the clan. Because armigerous clans do not have such chiefs, they are not recognised as noble communities and have no legal standing under Scots law.“Jedburgh lies on the Jed Water, a tributary of the River Teviot, 16 km (10 miles) from the border with England, and is dominated by the substantial ruins of Jedburgh Abbey.   The abbey was founded in 1147, but border wars with England in the 16th century left it a ruin. David I built a  castle at Jedburgh, and in 1174 it was one of five fortresses ceded to England. It was an occasional royal residence for the Scots but was demolished in 1409. The proximity to England made it subject to raids and skirmishes by both Scottish and English forces but its strategic position also brought the town valuable trade. At various times and at various locations the town supported a horse market, a cattle market, a corn market and a butcher market. Farm workers and servants also attended hiring fairs seeking employment

Jedburgh Castle is located not far from the Abbey ruins.