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In Portnaboe there are also two intrusive volcanic dykes running out to sea, one of them is aptly named the 'Camel's Back'. The foreshore around the causeway has claimed many ships, in 1890 the schooner 'William & Mary' foundered on rocks between Portnaboe and Portcoon, on route from Maryport, Cumbria to Letterkenny, Donegal. Port Ganny sweeps round from the Great Stookan to the Causeway itself, if you had visited here forty years or so ago, you would have encountered many local characters with their wares set out before them on the pathway leading to the Stones, selling everything from local soapstone carvings ( metamorphic rock with a soapy feel and the characteristic mineral of Talc), refreshments, to a guided tour of the Causeway Stones with a bit of blarney - an older version of what you still see today at the Cliffs of Moher. Tales tell of a ban on a certain local spirit being sold in public, to get round this law, the old ladies of the causeway would sell you the water and give you the spirit for free. Looking back to the Great Stookan, there is a rock whose silhouette, especially as twilight falls, clearly resembles one of these old ladies walking up the steep incline - known locally 'Granny's Rock'. The causeway itself is a fascinating array of stones and amongst them you will find many interesting places including 'Wishing Chair' which as been sat upon by many, many famous people too numerous to list. The causeway stones also featured on the cover of the Led Zeppelin album 'Houses of the Holy'. Port Noffer is entered through the 'Giants Gate', a narrow pathway between tall vertical basalt columns and the towering Aird Snout which is lined with exposed tilted columns. On the foreshore is the distinct shape of the 'Giants Boot', a huge basalt rock which is weathered brown and in the shape of a boot. Port Noffer is also another site of shipwrecks - the 'Spokesman on route from Liverpool to Derry' laden with coal foundered here in 1847, accounts reported that no-one was found with the grounded wreck and that the log book had no records for several days before she was lost. Other ships that have foundered in this area include 'Abraham & Ann' 1824, and the 'Diligence' in 1839. Looking across to the far side of Port Noffer and accessible by the lower cliff path is the impressive 'Giants Organ' - tall hexagonal basalt columns set into the steep grassy slope - the Shepherd's path connects from here to the upper cliff walk. You cannot follow the lower cliff path into Port Reostan but you can still view the wonderful Amphitheatre from the corner, a sheer wall of tall vertical columns line the cliff face. Lacada Point is where the Spanish Galleass the 'Girona' sank in 1588 with the loss of over 1000 Spanish sailors and soldiers from the ill fated Armada. The bodies were washed into Port na Spaniagh and written accounts of Port na Spaniagh tell of a pile of white bones that once existed in the bay just above the shoreline which were known locally as 'The Spaniard's Bones'. |
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