Peace Walk (Part II): A Land of the Irish

Due to Travelblog's system failure... yes... I said it before, I lost ten articles. So I'm re-publishing them and I'm sorry for filling your mailbox. If you haven't read them, here they are again, and enjoy. Sorry for the inconvenience, my friends.

Footprints & Our Path

Eighty-six days—slowly, the days pass, ticking down as we cross the map with our footprints. Each town and city turns into a refuge from the elements, providing a kitchen for food and a roof for shelter. Our route covers the following:

Dublin - Swords
Swords - Balbriggan
Balbriggan - Drogheda
Drogheda - Ardee
Ardee- Dundalk
Dundalk - Newry
Newry- Banbridge
Banbridge - Lisburn
Lisburn - Belfast

Through the villages, towns and cities; along the rolling green farmlands cultivated with corn, wheat and potatoes, a subtle drum sounds from the accompanying Japanese Nippozan Myhoji monk. He’s Nagase-shonin, who lives in London, and with the melody in the ambiance, every last note and breeze fades into a passing sky. There, large nebulous vessels float in the celestial seas of the northern isles. The weather is intermittent: Days blanketed with sweeping gray in a stiff wind. Others are patched with sunbursts, warming the body like cold hands on a fresh mug. Then there are days of delicate sunlight, a piercing blue depth, clear and crisp and contrary to Los Angeles’ late summer afternoons. Plumes of white ether send our banner and flags gusts of fresh breath, and gray hauls shower us in a flash of rain and hail.

The Peace Walk moved in silence and sociability, old walkers reuniting after the years or months, and new joining the family. Cars drove by—glistening Mercedes, Audis, BMWs and Volkswagens, honking their horns in spurts of approval with waves and thumbs up. Few trucks and vans blitzed by representing a one-fingered peace sign. Rogers Barrel, a local from Ardee, joined us for a few days, becoming the only Irish walker to participate for an extended amount of time.

I was curious about the honks. “Hey Rog, what’s a honk to an Irishman?”

“Ah, ya know, ‘tis thee approval lad. Fair game to ya. Fair game.” Roggie explained in a thick accent, forcing me to focus my concentration in order to catch the dialect. “They would be here, but ya know—bloody bills and thee job, wife and young children. They give thee honk to say ‘Fair game, lads. Fair game.’”

After five days of consecutive walking, averaging fifteen miles each day, Dundalk in County Meath was an appreciated rest day. Onboard to represent his proud land of Ireland, Roggie threw a group of us into the back of his windowless van and drove north. We rummaged the town of Carlingford at King John’s 12th century castle and ascended the Cooley Mountains upon the synonymous peninsula. Stark and barren, the ride in the back of the van up a twisting dirt road presented an image of my insides if I wasn’t careful. But at the brink of nauseous vertigo, the door slid back, a waft of gale-force winds expanded my diaphragm, and I was relieved, my light head blowing into an Irish Sea.

Outside on the summit, the winds howled at a stern 50+ miles per hour. It tossed us, raged our jackets like thick tundra grass, and hissed as it flew through the electrical towers and their lasting steel. The land was only alive with chunks of stone, tuffs of grass and dark brown soils fresh from the passing rainstorms. Roggie let loose an Irish pride atop his mountains. He sung an intonation to his raging weather, and he praised a height of dependence just south of the borderline.

Nationalism & Compassion Within Gold

The Irish come across as a silent, respectful carriage of personality; gentle in talk, and slow to start conversation. They remind me of a far-off paradise; a lone island out in the crystalline seas or a verdant wheat field where swallows sing between ripening husks. Faces are light in complexion. Smiles are softer then their thin hair. Their words are chosen with poetic justice, pleasing to a W.B. Yeats. It is a land of deep folk, and tales lasting the ages. Time may change, and the ways about them may flux betwixt joy, struggle, pain and back to joy, but their hearts are as pure as their dreams. It’s a solidarity within a nationalism set in gold.

In each village and town, through the curving roads of a winding wooded countryside to the straight-aways of the A1 motorway with swells of traffic, the Irish have and continue to move with their land. Roggie was a proud man, yet humble to the magnanimous interaction between humans in this driven world. He showed us his land, and shared the spirit of his culture. Likewise, individuals continuously represented a calm face, providing kettles of tea and coffee, platters of biscuits and dishes of hot meals. From the minuscule to the Brobdingnagian gifts of support in every shape or form, the Irish lived their pride: They gave it and they received it.

Our meal in Drogheda at Bru Restaurant & Lounge, complete with personalized menus, was indeed over the top. But as we moved northward—into Dundalk, across to Newry, through Banbridge and entering Belfast—the support multiplied. We were fed constantly, our bellies protruding as our conscious sought the more miles to walk it off. (FYI—It is a false assumption that one will loose weight on a peace walk).

On our final day into Belfast from Lisburn, the whole schedule revolved around food. First, we rose, packed and took a three-mile morning stroll to breakfast—food stop number one. Then, it was another three-miles to lunch—food stop number two. Next, it was off into the heart of Belfast for a stop at City Hall where we met with the Deputy Lord Mayor (sipping tea and coffee, and nibbling biscuits of course)—food stop number three. Finally, our resting place, driven to for a matter of fact, where we took an early and over-fulfilling dinner—that’s number four, not including dessert…

To be continued...

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