FINGAL'S CAVE
Inverness, United Kingdom
Pink Floyd, Queen Victoria, and Lord Tennyson all made special trips just to visit this cave. That’s how good it is.
Side note: they didn’t visit together.
This cave looks like the kind of massive sea organ Poseidon would play. Think geometric hexagonal columns lined up like pillars.
The cave was a big deal to the ancient Irish and Scottish Celts and was rediscovered in 1772. Things really took off at that point. Songs were written about it, royals visited, and it inspired an operatic number. Casual.
Side note: they didn’t visit together.
This cave looks like the kind of massive sea organ Poseidon would play. Think geometric hexagonal columns lined up like pillars.
The cave was a big deal to the ancient Irish and Scottish Celts and was rediscovered in 1772. Things really took off at that point. Songs were written about it, royals visited, and it inspired an operatic number. Casual.
Back in the day the Celts called this slab of earth The Cave of Melody. Legend had it that this cave and the Giant’s Causeway (in Ireland) were pieces of bridge built by the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill. This lad was off to Scotland to fight fellow giant, Benandonner.
Turns out the Celts were not completely batshit. Fingal’s Cave and the Giant’s Causeway were both created by the same ancient lava flow.
Turns out the Celts were not completely batshit. Fingal’s Cave and the Giant’s Causeway were both created by the same ancient lava flow.
Fast forward to 1772 and naturalist Sir Joseph Banks rediscovered the cave. He obviously decided the cave needed a re-branding. At the time the most popular book was called ‘Fingal, An Ancient Epic Poem in Six Books’…
Riveting stuff.
In the ultimate big dick move he renamed the cave, Fingal’s Cave. The Celts are probs doing an endless eyeroll in their graves.
Riveting stuff.
In the ultimate big dick move he renamed the cave, Fingal’s Cave. The Celts are probs doing an endless eyeroll in their graves.
Your boy Banks may have rediscovered it but German composer Felix Mendelssohn put the cave on the map. He was so obsessed with it that he wrote a symphony called The Hebrides Overture about it. It premiered in London in 1832.
And he wasn’t the only creative that got a hard-on for Fingal. J. M. W. Turner painted Staffa, Fingal’s Cave the same year.
It’s all strippers and coke until a beaut cave comes along... Even Pink Floyd got in on the act, naming one of their early unreleased songs after the cave. Hardcore.
And he wasn’t the only creative that got a hard-on for Fingal. J. M. W. Turner painted Staffa, Fingal’s Cave the same year.
It’s all strippers and coke until a beaut cave comes along... Even Pink Floyd got in on the act, naming one of their early unreleased songs after the cave. Hardcore.
Today you can take a boat round the 72 foot tall cave. But the best way to see it is hiking inside. You have to hop between slippery basalt pillars and dodge a puffin colony. No biggie.
This one’s a keeper - hit the Lucky button then save this trip for a happier time 💚