The Causeway of the Giants

The majestic Giant’s Causeway, Co. Antrim, takes centre stage in this film from the Pathétone Weekly cinemagazine from 1935.

A man clambers on some of the 37,000 basalt rock columns as a narrator describes the location as one of the ‘wonders of the world’. Most of the rocks are hexagonal in shape but there is one octagonal rock is known as the Keystone. Good fortune awaits those who sit in the Wishing Chair or drink from the Wishing Well. The narrator tells the legend of how an Irish giant built the causeway while trying to get to Scotland to fight a rival. He then adds how ‘it is probably really formed by volcanic action’ and is ‘one of the most superb rock formations in the world’.

This film is part of The Irish Independence Film Collection – The Early Irish Free State that explores facets of Irish society after the War of Independence and up to the birth of the Irish Republic.