Olympic torch lights up Northern Ireland

GIANT'S CAUSEWAY, United Kingdom - The Olympic torch was held aloft Monday at the Giant's Causeway, the spectacular coastal rock formation, the highlight of its journey across Northern Ireland. The torch is being taken round all parts of the United Kingdom in a 10-week, 8,000-mile (12,875-kilometre) relay ahead of the 2012 London Games, which start on July 27. Northern Irish triathlete Peter Jack, 54, carried the flame in broad sunshine at the Giant's Causeway, which comprises around 40,000 interlocking mostly hexagonal basalt columns formed by volcanic activity. Celtic legend has it that the giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool) built the causeway as stepping stones across to Scotland in a challenge to a giant called Benandonner. The iconic world heritage site attracts more than half a million tourists visit each year. The flame was also carried over the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, which links the mainland to a tiny island. In Londonderry, Northern Ireland's second city, the torch was to cross the Peace Bridge in a symbol of cross-community reconciliation before a party marking the end of the torch's journey for the day. The link was opened relatively recently between a disused army barracks in a mainly Protestant part of Derry and its largely Catholic centre. Northern Irish sports minister Caral Ni Chuilin said: "The all-Ireland torch relay is a celebration of all we have to offer. "The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, Giant's Causeway and Dunluce Castle are just some of this island's jewels." The torch is on a five-day journey around Northern Ireland and will cross the border as a token of closer ties between Britain and the Republic of Ireland following Queen Elizabeth II's landmark visit there last year. The trip comes as Britain celebrates the sovereign's diamond jubilee, marking her 60 years on the throne. It will visit Dublin on Wednesday, passing some of the capital's main sights. The highly-charged visit was the first by a British monarch since her grandfather king George V in 1911, before the republic won independence in 1922. In his diamond jubilee personal tribute, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, said he thought the visit had been his mother's "greatest achievement". Seen as the last piece in the jigsaw of peace in Northern Ireland, the four-day trip required the republic's biggest-ever security operation. However, through some highly symbolic gestures - including speaking in Irish - she melted away enough post-colonial angst to permit an unscheduled public walkabout at the end of the visit. Source: AsiaOne