In search of leprechauns, fairies and banshees...

The journey is the destination when you are on the Causeway Coastal Route in Northern Ireland, in search of magic and folklore.
The little people are watching,” whispers my guide Billy Scott as I shiver in the cold, my jacket wrapped tightly around me. The winds howl through the trees. It is dark and dramatic. I am standing in front of a little nursery filled with sculptures that look straight out of a fairy tale.They look like pretty garden gnomes. I am told they are little people, who were once rulers of the country but were later defeated and forced to live in the underworld. Apparently, they arrived in a mist and vanished into thin air. Legends say that they love children and often abduct them, if the parents are not around. There is no one around but us, as we continue on our road trip through the Causeway Coastal Route in northern Ireland in search of fairies and leprechauns.

Ruins of churches and castles stare at us from atop cliffs. The wailing of the winds sound like banshees from the trees. Small inns and taverns along the coastal villages are home to ghosts. The sea and the sky are in shades of grey. Forests are enchanted. I stop to soak in the view. A hazy canopy of branches, dipped in various shades of green greet me as the murmurings of a rivulet sound like music to the ear. Northern Ireland is hauntingly beautiful – its eeriness and melancholy only add to the charm.
The journey becomes the destination. Billy and I are driving from Belfast on the coastal route, stopping at castles and coastal hamlets. The 12th century Carrickfergus Castle is one of the oldest stone castles in the region built by the Normans and it stands overlooking the Belfast Lough or the Carrickfergus Bay.
A well in the castle is, however, haunted, apparently by a soldier who was wrongly executed for murder. The town is steeped in medieval lore and stories of ghosts.
We continue on our journey and pass through Glenarm, a pretty coastal village with its historic lanes and cobbled streets which is the first of the nine glens in County Antrim. Looking straight out of a picture postcard, the village also has a very old private castle, home to the Earls of Antrim.
The skies darken as we drive past the pretty harbour of Carnlough, where an unusual war hero is remembered with a plaque – Paddy the pigeon. A recipient of the Dickin Medal, Paddy was one of the pigeons trained during World War II to pass messages. The Irish carrier pigeon took about four hours and 50 minutes to cross the 230 miles of the English Channel as he flew passing on coded messages.
We finally reach Ballintoy, another harbour which became famous as a Game of Thrones destination. Rocks and rock formations lend a fantasy touch to this dramatic landscape. As we drive past the village, we visit the Carrick-a-Rede-Bridge that dangles precariously 98 feet above the rocks, connecting the mainland to a tiny island called Carrickarede. The bridge swayed by the winds is about 66 feet, and is believed to have been built by fishermen to check their fishing nets from top, to catch salmon.

Nothing prepares me for my first view of Ireland’s first Heritage Site, Giant Causeway, a natural site caused over 60 million years ago due to volcanic activity with 40,000 basalt columns formed out of it. I love the Irish for their stories. They can make even a basalt column and a volcanic site into a legendary story around giants.
Ireland’s favourite giant, Finn MacCool, was challenged by the Scottish giant Benandonner who goes into hiding when he realises that the Scottish giant is bigger than him. Finn’s wife, however, tucks him in a cradle when Benandonner knocked on his doors. Seeing the massive baby, the Scottish giant apparently fled for his life destroying the causeway originally built by Finn, so that he wouldn’t be followed.
But it doesn’t end there. The Irish with their humour and sense of imagination have named many a rock formation. Look out for the Organ, the Chimney Stacks, the Giant’s Boot before posing at the Wishing Seat, among others. And as the cold winds bite into my skin, I head to the mammoth visitors’ centre to lose myself in a world of fable and folklore.
Our last port of halt before the sun calls it a day takes us to rugged cliffs overlooking the sea. A gaunt spectacle greets us. Perched proudly are the ruins of an ancient castle. There is an air of melancholy in the magnificent ruins. Built in the 13th century, the ramparts and turrets hide many a secret like the ghost of a broken-hearted woman, who roams through these windowless ruins.
As darkness envelopes the sky and the lighthouses wink along the coastline, I end the 120-mile Causeway Coastal Route with a final visit to the oldest distillery at Bushmills to flavour the spirit of Ireland before calling it a night.