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Giant's Causeway visitors urged not to jam coins into iconic rocks

Catherine Morrison
BBC News NI
Getty Images Hexagonal columns all fitted together at the edge of the coast. The sea is rough and has white foam at the rocks. Getty Images
Hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals visit the Giant's Causeway each year

The Giant's Causeway has faced many threats to its survival, from mythical fights between giants to coastal erosion and rising sea levels.

Now there's a new problem.

At first, you don't notice them but as soon as you see one, you start to see them everywhere - hundreds of them, in every fissure and crevice.

They are coins, inserted into the tiny gaps between one of Northern Ireland's most famous and photographed natural resources, the basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway.

A wide shot of the rocks. People can be seen walking over them. The sea is bright blue in colour and looks calm. The hills in the background are green.
The Giant's Causeway is made up of some 40,000 massive black basalt columns sticking out of the sea

Like the padlocks left on the Pont des Arts bridge in Paris, people often leave the coins behind for love or luck.

But, like that tradition, the coins are causing problems, and now visitors are being asked to keep their spare change in their pockets.

In Paris, it has been made illegal to attach a padlock after part of the bridge collapsed in 2014.

At the Giant's Causeway, the practice started years ago – but the caretakers for the site, the National Trust, believe it has increased significantly in scale in the last decade or so.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists and locals visit each year and only a fraction leave behind this unwanted memento.

But the coins are having a direct impact on the rocks themselves. The worst affected are the basalt columns that make up The Loom – 10 ft high leaning towers of rock.

National Trust A line of old coins in the centre of the rock. The rock has turned a rusted orange colour around the coins.National Trust
The coins rust and discolour the rock

They are a slightly lighter colour than the iconic hexagonal black basalt at the point of the causeway.

It is easy to see at first glance the discolouration caused by the coins - a reddish-brown wash over the surface.

Dr Cliff Henry, nature engagement officer with the National Trust, said the rocks are affected on a number of levels.

"People see others put coins in, so they copycat, they take a coin out of their pocket and they might take a stone off the ground to hammer the coin in, but they might miss and chip the stone itself so that's doing damage."

Dr Henry is looking at the camera and is wearing thin framed glasses. He has thin grey hair and is wearing a bright red fleece and polo top.
Dr Cliff Henry said the rocks are affected on a number of levels

He added: "Once the coin is in there it starts to rust and due to the atmosphere here it rusts at an accelerated level.

"The coin then expands and that's putting pressure on the joint near the edge so we have seen on a number of places here that the corners have popped off.

"And the rusting metal in there is starting to leach. The iron and nickel and copper is leaching out over the rocks and it looks unsightly."

He said they're appealing to people to stop inserting the coins before more damage is done to these 60-million-year-old rocks.

"On a geological timescale, this is very rapid erosion."

Coins jammed in Giant's Causeway damaging rock

A report from the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland shed some light on the problem.

Dr Kirstin Lemon said: "The advice of the Geological Survey to the National Trust is to see if we can remove as many of those coins as we can.

"By removing them, it means we're stopping any further physical impact on the site itself. We're also stopping that chemical impact as well."

She said she hoped that by removing coins, it would stop others adding more.

A specialist stonemason has started the work and has removed about 10% of them so far.

"He's done some test sites already so we know we can take these coins out without doing damage to the stones themselves," said Dr Henry.

"We want him to do it - we don't want the general public to do that, we don't want to cause any further damage."

National Trust A line of old coins in the centre of the rock. The rock has turned a rusted orange colour around the coins. There is a large bulk of old rusted coins in the middle with some newer coins folded over.National Trust
Tourists use other rocks to hammer the coins in

Signs will also be put up and visitors are already warned not to insert the coins by tour guides at the Giant's Causeway, like Mark Adams.

"I think it's a simple thing of wanting to leave something of themselves behind," he said.

"But if you want to leave something behind, take a photo, put it online, it'll be there forever."

A man in a red hoodie, yellow hi vis vest with an ear piece in looks at the camera with a slight smile. He has light coloured hair.
Tour guides at the Giant's Causeway, like Mark Adams, urge people not to put coins between the rocks

Last year, the Giant's Causeway received about 684,000 visits.

The numbers are steadily climbing back to their pre-pandemic levels. There were nearly a million visits in 2019.

The National Trust said not only is it Northern Ireland's most valuable natural phenomenon, it is important for the economy too.

"It's an icon for Northern Ireland - if we can't look after this, what's the hope for the rest of the country?," said Dr Henry.

"We really need to be looking after the causeway as best we can."

The Giant's Causeway became a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1986.

The World Heritage list includes 1,223 properties across the world and recognises the sites for their cultural or natural importance.