Faced with the prospect of another day’s hard slog of studying Economy and Marketing, the 21-year-old Mark Boyle could have been forgiven for lying in bed all day. Instead, slightly bedraggled and hungover, he wandered across to the local video store and scoured the shelves for a few films to pass the time. The young business student picked out an acclaimed movie that had picked up many Oscars when released and took it home, all set for a day of rest. Three hours later, his life had changed. Mark, who “previously had never gotten emotional about anything”, was in tears, struck dumb by the beliefs and ideals of the “beautiful human being” who was the subject of the film. The film was Gandhi.

Sat in a Bristol café over seven years later Saoirse (pronounced sear-shuh), as he is now known, eagerly tucks into his organic tapas enthusing over a journey next year that could well result in fatal consequences. On the 30th January he will set off for India on foot, wearing yellow trousers and a t-shirt emblazoned with peace written in different languages, he will also carry a small satchel with a passport, a pair of hiking boots, a couple of books, a spare t-shirt and a rain jacket. Nothing else. The symbolism of the date and motives for the pilgrimage quickly become clear, “Communities are being assassinated by governments and by ourselves, I want to see the rebirth of communities by the time I arrive in Porbandar (Gandhi’s birthplace).” The departure date lies on the sixtieth anniversary of his assassination, so he hopes to have delayed the “assassination of communities” by the time of his arrival.

Hailing from the North-west of Ireland, Saoirse soon left university and headed to Edinburgh to work for a vegan food company, before moving to Bristol where he set up an organic business and taught evening classes. In 2006 he hitched his way around New Zealand where in the spectacular surroundings of the Mangmuka forest his life changed again. He became part of a small community where no money existed and for Saoirse it was, “the most amazing experience of my life, until then I had been involved in the anti-movement but in that community I realized that trying to reestablish communities was what I was born to do.” He quickly changed his name to Saoirse, the gaelic word for freedom, symbolising his desire to be free from want, but most significantly, money.

Saoirse is the most convincing advocate of “the best things in life are free” philosophy I’ve ever met, pointing out the amount of times people always mention going for a walk, sitting around a campfire or swimming in the sea as being the most enjoyable. And it was back in Bristol, in his boat by the docks, that the third part of this trilogy of “eureka” moments took place. He had had a deep discussion with a friend about the problems in the world and started running a bath, later on, surrounded by the bubbles, he stood up and realised the main root of all the problems was money, “It suddenly dawned on me that the sooner the world got rid of money the quicker it would be able to heal itself.” He sold his boat and invested the money and his savings into building a website that allows people to exchange tools, skills and land for free.

There are similar groups like LETS and timebank with similar motives – a free exchange of skills – but the differences are clear. For a start there’s the disclaimer, or more precisely the lack of one, this is from the website, “The world doesn’t need another disclaimer. What it does need however is a move away from a “where there’s a blame, there’s a claim culture. If you decide to do it , the skill swap, take responsibility for it and don’t make the world anymore afraid than it already is.” Also, there are no chatrooms and a limit on the amount of emails you can send, as explained on the website “if you want to chat to someone, go and do some gardening.” Saoirse explains that freeconomy, the name of the community, is different from the others because people aren’t doing it for time credits (as with timebank) but, as the web address suggests, for the love of it, “It’s a different currency, part of a community who know that by being part of this community we’re all going to help each other.”

Saoirse compares his current self to his 21-year-old self as “polar opposites” and even admits that his guilty green secret is supporting Manchester United, “probably the most unethical club in the world.” This is as much as he is willing to compromise though, offering passionate views about a coming economic collapse that will result from the end of available oil, “As long as society remains capitalist we will never have a true sense of

community, and environmental destruction will continue unabated. Economic growth is completely dependent on us destroying our environment. That may sound controversial, but it’s the truth and I’m not going to pull any punches.” The argument that one person can’t make a difference, and that governments are in a better position to implement change than grassroots is similarly dismissed by Saoirse, “I think one person standing up for what they believe in is the only thing that has ever made a difference. Look at Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. Look at Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. The strength of their message was from facing huge opposition and not shirking. Not once.”

Saoirse’s hope is that by offering his services for free on the journey and receiving food and lodging in return he will be spreading his community-building message to the many different cultures he will encounter along the way. He intends to walk through Europe, Ukraine and Afghanistan before entering India via Pakistan. He will have no technological devices, relying instead on his constant belief that trust and a positive will can overcome the challenges of the journey. Negative thoughts only really appear once in the conversation when the reality of certain situations occurs to him, “I don’t know if I’m going to make it to India alive, statistically I am probably one of the most likely people to die on the planet considering the amount of scenarios.”

He intends to go through a strict training regime in the run-up to his departure, completing 40-hour fasts followed by long walks then he will watch Gandhi one last time. In the morning of his departure he’ll have breakfast with friends and then set off, this will be difficult, “the thing I’ll miss most will be my friends, they’re a really great bunch down here.” When he comes back, he hopes to start his own community that will share skills, tools and resources as an alternative to the corporate world. The final word should be left to Saoirse, “The most dangerous thing you can do is to do nothing. I’d rather die than be part of a world that is eroding community spirit everyday.”