Modern travelers on foot follow wisdom along the Ulster Way. Storytellers, said Walter Benjamin, are descended from one of two tribes: the mariners or the peasants. We revel in the stories of the sailors, with their lure of exotic places and the treasures a mariner brings home. We hearken to the stories of the peasants for a glimmer of the past, best revealed to natives and landed people. Brian Bouldrey, professional vagabond, and his very organized friend Garth, two unlikely mariners, hit dry land with backpacks and point their hiking boots down the Ulster Way. Along the more than 600 miles of Northern Irish mountains, moors, and monuments, they pursue a quest. Among the causeways and caves and publicans’ cups, they seek faraway places revealed by the wisdom that only the peasant can offer.
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Brian Bouldrey. The Peasants and The Mariners
ONE. Home Surgery
TWO. The Golden Age of Things
THREE. The Peasant and the Mariner
FOUR. The Prodigal Son
FIVE. We Are Kings in Exile
SIX. The Prodigal Son’s Party
SEVEN. The Prodigal Son’s Homecoming Party Bar Fight
EIGHT. The Prodigal Son’s Mom
NINE. Ireland Looks Exactly the Way You Think It Does
TEN. Tallulah
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Brian Bouldrey
Brian Bouldrey
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We unfold the maps, maps made by careful people in France, with a 9:1 ratio. At that level, you can see the homes. They appear as little squares, huddled in towns, lonesome in a world of rivers and roads and turnpikes and trails. Then I realize I have made a mistake. They are maps for the Burren in west Ireland. We are hiking the Ulster Way in Northern Ireland. I have brought the wrong maps. Garth is trying to remain calm, although I have come unprepared, and with the wrong maps. It takes a lot to make Garth mad, but I have made him mad.
I pull a little tin from my pocket. It’s filled with hard candies in the shapes of ducks and rabbits. I bought bags of tart candy ducks and bunnies and I keep a handful of them in this little tin. They are my Angry Ducks. I see that Garth is angry, and so I offer him a duck.
