Welcome.

This website has been developed to celebrate the memory and to share a collection of the poetic verses of the Tyrone  poet Michael Mullin, also known as Michael “The Bard” Mullin. He was known locally as ‘The Bard of Foremass’. Born and raised in the townland of Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, County Tyrone, Michael’s love of  nature, the land and its people and his deep faith  is reflected in all his poetry.

When his grandson Patrick Mullin died and being of a computerised mind he bequeathed that this website be set up to publish his grandfather’s poems. It has taken some time and many false starts but we the family have now organised a small amount of his poems here.

We hope you get the same enjoyment from his poetic verses as we do.

Michael Mullin was born on the 29th of January 1886 to parents Terence and Margaret Mullin née Conroy. He was reared on their small farm in the townland of Foremass Lower. As he grew up and lived in his beloved Foremass he always saw God’s handiwork in the natural beauty of the countryside and from this he drew inspiration for a lot of his writing.

He lived through turbulent times at the beginning of the twentieth century and in his early years he read and contributed to papers including The Nation, The Weekly Freeman, The Packet and other magazines of a nationalist and republican point of view. He also wrote for the Ulster Herald and there was a long running poetic debate in the Poets Corner in the Herald about whether young ladies should wear cloaks or shawls and it was at this time that he was first called The Bard of Foremass by fellow poet Michael Conroy from Barnesone. He contributed to the Ulster Herald from his late teens to well into his old age.

His poems were also published in The Cork Examiner, The Independent and religious magazines, The Far East and African Missions

He married Mary Jane Mullin of nearby Foremass Upper townland in 1919 and reared their family in Foremass. His poetry generated much needed supplemental income for his young family. As a prolific poet Michael Mullin wrote on a wide range of subjects but his favourite themes were Nature, God, Love, Family and Farming. His catalogue of poetry stretches to hundreds of published poems with further work that remains unpublished.

He died on St. Brigid’s Eve in 1978 two days after his 92^nd birthday.

He is buried just inside the gates and opposite the front door of

St.Mary’s Chapel, Dunmoyle, in the parish of Errigal Ciaran, Co. Tyrone.

Now Purgatory opens. Holy Souls
From the dread house of pain are pouring forth
In millions, like a mighty wave that rolls
Landwards. They seek the friends they left on earth.

Autumnal blasts are moaning in the trees;
Each trembling bough is groaning as it bends.
But louder, sadder than the sobbing breeze,
Rings the Souls’ cry – “Have pity on us, friends!”

The spirits of the Dead are passing by;
They knock on door, they tap on window pane.
We do not see them but we hear their cry,
And in our souls we know they’ve come again.

Ah! here is love’s, and here is friendship’s test.
They shiver in the cold outside the door;
“We cannot help ourselves, we cannot rest.
Your prayers is all the help which we implore.

Your prayers can lift us out of torture dire;
Your prayers can bring us bliss that never ends.
Your prayers can snatch us out of burning fire.
Have pity, O! have pity on us, friends!”

November’s dead leaves now drift past,
November’s blast the forest bends.
But sadder than the wailing blast
Is that soul cry: “Have pity, friend!”

“Help! help!” that cry rings down the years.
“We seek not tears, nor vain regret;
We plead for prayers, but not for tears.
O help us, friends! to pay our debt!