Were you e’er in Altamuskin at the cuttin’ o’ the peat,
When the summer sun is shinin’, an’ the mountain air is sweet?
When the farmers come from Foremass, Aghnagar, an’ Bellakeel,
With the turf-spades that they carry, an’ the barrows that they wheel.

In the city here what memories come surgin’ through my brain!
In fancy I am walking up the mountains road again.
To cheer the toilers at their work, the skylark sings his best,
The moorhen cackles loudly when molested on her nest.

‘Tis mid-day now; we gladly stretch our weary limbs awhile,
An’ have a good old dinner in the good old gipsy style;
O, the air of Altamuskin is an appetizer good –
An’ heavy works the medicine can make us relish food.

An’ now the neighbours gather round, the youthful an’ the old;
A happy hour is whiled away, the drollest tales are told.
There are maidens sly, and maidens shy, and pretty girls among
Blithe lads who know the way to keep the girls from thinkin’ long.

In the centre o’ the city here ‘tis oft an’ oft I sigh
For the cackle o’ the moorhen, an’ the curlews piercing cry,
The singin’ o’ the mountain lark, the air so pure an’ sweet –
In old Altamuskin, at the cuttin’ o’ the peat.

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

Bear this little bunch of heather to my brother far away,
And tell him that it grew and bloomed on Altamuskin brae;
And tell him that I plucked it ere the dew on it was dry,
And send it in remembrance of the happy days gone by.

He’ll prize this bunch of heather, that is wet with Irish dew,
For the sake of him who plucked it, for the sake of where it grew;
For the sake of Erin’s mountains, with their beauty wild and strange,
That haunts the exiles’ memories, no matter where they range.

Full many a plain and mountain, and many a league of sea
Now separate my brother from his native hills and me.
But this bunch has magic power – when this heather meets his gaze,
‘Twill bear him back to boyhood’s haunts, and boyhood’s vanished days.

He’ll stand on Altamuskin, in the early hours of morn
When whins are crowned with yellow, and the bloom is on the thorn.
He’ll see his boyhood peopled with the bogmen marching up
With turf spades and turf barrows, to the mountains airy top.

He’ll hear the skylark’s song again, the curlew’s piercing cry,
And the startled moorhen’s cackle when the bogmen pass anigh.
So bear this bunch of heather to my brother o’er the sea –
He’ll cherish it for old time’s sake, for sake of home and me.

MICHAEL MULLIN, ‘THE BARD OF FOREMASS’,
Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone

(This poem was written when granda’s brother Patrick went first to London. Both Patrick and his brother John came back to live in Howth for a few years then went back to London.  Patrick’s daughter Shiela married an Italian Renato Cardano and they all moved to Italy.  Patrick died and is buried in Italy)

Patrick’s wife Ann though ‘London born’ her parents were from Cork and always got ‘The Cork Weekly Examiner’ and we know this is why he sent so many poems to the poetry competitions in this paper. Patrick sent the paper back home to Foremass.  Interesting – the paper went from Cork to London and back to Foremass. Sometimes letters from The Cork Examiner to granda addressed Sixmilecross would have ‘NOT SIXMILEBRIDGE’ marked on them.  It was obvious they went to Sixmilebridge Co. Clare first which was just outside Cork.

The dearest friends some time must part –
Though sad it is to sever;
‘Twas always so, ‘tis so to-day,
And so ‘twill be for ever.

Through life’s bright, rosy morn we lived
Together with each other,
No wonder that our parting made
Us sorrowful, my brother!

You went away from this sweet isle
Of your and my devotion;
Yet, as the rainbow spans the sky,
Our love can bridge the ocean.

Each day, each night, each changing year,
Hot June and cold December,
Still found us constant comrades here,
As long as I remember.

At Mass on Sundays, at our work
‘Mong green fields or brown heather
At school, at home, at youthful sports,
We two were still together.

These thoughts are saddening – then why
Wake up such recollections?
I wake them not; they never sleep,
These, my first fond affections

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