Northern Ireland’s Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks — to bring love or luck — is damaging the world-famous wonder.<\/p>\n
Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago.<\/p>\n
Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool.<\/p>\n
In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks.<\/p>\n
The gesture is “a token of love or luck”, according to Cliff Henry, the causeway’s nature engagement officer.<\/p>\n
But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving “unsightly” rust-coloured streaks, Henry told AFP.<\/p>\n
He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prised out a US cent with a set of keys.<\/p>\n
“We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world — any currency you can think of, pretty much — we have had it here,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were “doing some serious damage” and something had to be done about it, he noted.<\/p>\n
Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to “leave no trace”.<\/p>\n
– ‘Distressed’ –<\/p>\n
“Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it,” causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were “distressed” to hear of the damage the metal caused.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It’s really terrible to hear that,” said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida.<\/p>\n
“It’s kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It’s not good,” said his wife, Geri, 70.<\/p>\n
As part of a \u00a330,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could — without causing further damage — from 10 test sites around the causeway.<\/p>\n
Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway.<\/p>\n
“If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.<\/p>\n
“We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant’s Causeway,and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations.”<\/p>\n
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