I like to dream of turf smoke,
Streamer-like, unrolled
O’er little fields and gardens,
From tiny roofs of gold,
To dream of turf smoke drifting
O’er Ireland’s holy face,
To me it is a token
Of home and peace and grace.

I like to dream of bog-banks,
And ceannabhans like snow,
A turf stack by the gable
Of a little cot I know.
A big wide hearth – turf blazing-
Kettle, crooks, and crane,
Till this heart – chill and cheerless-
Begins to thaw again.

I like to dream of turf smoke,
No matter where I rove;
To me turf smoke’s a token
Of home and peace and love.
Sad pond’rings in my wand’rings
This truth to me impart-
It takes a fire of Irish turf
To warm an Irish heart.

Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone

Hidden among the heather, here I am
Upon a moorland mountain. All is calm.
The heather bells are swinging to the song,
The bogwind carols as it trips along

The sun is hot, but the bogwind is cool;
The earth is fair, the sky is beautiful.
The cannabhans are nodding woolly heads,
Like old men dozing ere they seek their beds.

The wonderous calm presiding over all
Seems but intensified, when curlews call –
Displeased that man should have the hardihood
To trespass on their haunts of solitude.

A shower of joy notes falls from out the skies;
The singer’s somewhere close to paradise;
It is a boglark’s voice –although it seems
An angel’s – lulling me to happy dreams.

Lonely and wild, yet lovely and sublime,
There is a pleasure in this place and time –
A sacred joy; for the All-wise, All-good
Makes felt His presence in this solitude.

Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone

Hie we away to the hill-top,
To the cutting of the peat!
The sun in the east is rising,
The wind from the west is sweet.
See the mountains doff their night-caps,
And to attention stand,
While over them soars the day-god
So glorious and so grand.

Hie we away up the bog road,
A dusty ribbon unfurled;
From the valley low, upward we go.
Till we stand on the top of the world.
Then away with the coats that cumber
The cutter who shapes the peat,
The filler who builds each barrow,
And the wheeler strong and fleet.

The cuckoo is sweetly calling,
The scream of the curlew’s shrill;
And the moor-fowl bid us failte
To their home on the heather hill.
But, halt! It is appetising work,
Hurry and light the fire,
And run and bring from the mountain spring
The water that we require.

Our table is now the heather,
Our seat is the heather, too –
We dine beside our camp fire
As bogmen love to do.
The boglarks sing to cheer us
As they climb up sunbeam stairs;
And on heathery harps the bogwind
Is playing enchanting airs.

As rose the sun in the morning,
So sinks the sun to rest;
So hie we home to our cabins,
And the ones that we love best.
The curling smoke from our chimneys
Seem to wave a welcome home
To the bands of tired turf-cutters
Who down the bog road come.

Michael Mullin ‘The Bard of Foremass’
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone