• Michael Mullins
  • Michael "The Bard" Mullin
  • "The Bard of Foremass"
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    Poems
    In Foremass in Tyrone

    Come draw your stools around the fire,
    And set yourselves at ease –
    For the frost is tight outside tonight,
    And bitter is the breeze;
    And I will sing you a simple song,
    A homely fireside one
    Of a spot I love all spots above –
    Of Foremass in Tyrone.

    Now Foremass is not very wild,
    Nor very grand and fair;
    Gay tourists seldom visit it –
    But it little seems to care.
    It is a high  unsheltered hill
    That runs from east to west,
    And the north winds chill, that strike that hill
    In winter are a pest.

    But Foremass has its sunny side,
    Like many another theme
    It has men as bold as the men of old;
    Love is no idle dream.
    Hospitality and friendship free
    Preside on each hearthstone.
    And beggars find a “failte” kind
    In Foremass in Tyrone.

    In Foremass now by many a hearth
    Is many a vacant chair –
    For emigration’s footsteps made
    A deep impression there.
    There fathers mourn, and mothers yearn,
    For many an absent one,
    Who wandered east and wandered west
    From Foremass in Tyrone.

    Young boys and girls, far o’er the wave,
    In many a land and clime,
    Sigh for that home across the foam
    Where passed youth’s happy time.
    Though day by day, ‘mong strangers gay,
    They live all sad and lone,
    In visions bright they live at night
    In Foremass in Tyrone.

    There’s many a brave and generous heart
    Yet beats on Foremass hill,
    And there are brains to think, and hands
    To toil for Erin still;
    There are men as bold as the men of old,
    Who will light, when Freedom’s won,
    A beacon bright on the highest height
    Of Foremass in Tyrone.

    MICHAEL MULLIN, ‘The Bard of Foremass’,
    Foremass Lower, Sixmilecross, Co. Tyrone.

    NEWSPAPER CUTTING – ULSTER HERALD – 1971

    The Bard of Foremass praises his native heath

    More than 60 years ago Mr. Michael Mullin “The Bard of Foremass” penned the following lines in praise of his native district.  They were first published in January, 1911.