We’ve heard of people waxing
Enthusiastic and
Admiring and applauding
Some piece of music grand.
We’ve heard about the sweetness
Of ‘music of the wind’
The rivers song; and Nature’s
Orchestral strains combined:
But what about the music –
(All rhymers it forgot)
The music bland that bubbles
From the boiling ‘praties’ pot.

Some folk think ‘praties bad food,
In nutriment but weak;
But I’ll engage a wager,
The teapot’s  twisted beak
Emits less healthy music,
And sings to less fair maids –
With lovely rose faces
Beneath their modest plaids;
Less Herculean ‘buacaills’
Who’ve big broad shoulders got –
Than does the music bubbling
From the boiling ‘pratie’ pot.

Pat’s rustic youngsters love it;
Though wealth may mock its strains,
It sings hope to some millions
Of sturdy honest swains.
Then may it sing for ever –
This democratic song –
And mingle with the crickets’,
To cheer the Gael along.
‘Twould beat the best piano
To liven up a cot –
The music that’s emitted
From the boiling ‘pratie’ pot.

Michael Mullin, ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’

Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.