Molly Malone

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"Molly Malone" (also known as "Cockles And Mussels") is the unofficial anthem of Dublin City in Ireland. The song is sung by supporters of Dublin GAA teams and Irish international rugby team, and tells the tale of a beautiful fishmonger who plied her trade on the streets of Dublin, but tragically died young, of a fever.

Statue of Molly on Grafton Street

Molly is commemorated in a statue designed by Jean Rynhart, placed at the bottom of Grafton Street in Dublin, erected to celebrate the city's first millennium in 1987; this statue is known colloquially as 'The Tart With The Cart', 'The Fish With The Dish' and 'The Trollop With The Scallops'. The statue portrays Molly as a busty young woman in seventeenth-century dress, and is claimed to represent the real person on whom the song is based. Her low-cut dress and large breasts were justified on the grounds that as 'women breastfed publicly in Molly's time, {and} breasts were popped out all over the place'. [1]

An urban legend has grown up around the figure of the historical Molly, who has been presented variously as a hawker by day and part-time prostitute by night, or - in contrast - as one of the few chaste female street-hawkers of her day.

However, there is no evidence that the song is based on a real woman who lived in the 17th century, or at any other time, despite claims that records of her birth and death have been located. Certainly, there were many Mary or Molly Malones born in Dublin over the centuries, but no evidence connects any of them to the events in the song, which was not recorded earlier than the early 1880s, when it was published as a work written and composed by James Yorkston, of Edinburgh. The song is in a familiar tragi-comic mode popular in this period, probably influenced by earlier songs with a similar theme, such as Percy Montross's "My Darling Clementine", which was written circa 1880.

In Dublin's fair city,
'where the girls are so pretty,
'I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
'As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
'Through streets broad and narrow,
'Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive alive oh!"

'"Alive-a-live-oh,
'Alive-a-live-oh",
'Crying "Cockles and mussels, alive alive oh".

'She was a fishmonger,
'And sure 'twas no wonder,
'For so were her mother and father before,
'And they each wheeled their barrow,
'Through streets broad and narrow,
'Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh!"

(chorus)

'Now I was a Rover,
'And sailed the seas over,
'So I bid my farewell to sweet Molly Malone.
'And as I was sailing,
'The wild wind was wailing,
'Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh!"

(chorus)

'She died of a fever,
'And no one could save her,
'And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
'Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
'Through streets broad and narrow,
'Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh!"

(chorus)

Note on pronunciation: Before the Great Vowel Shift, /i:/ was pronounced as /eɪ/ This pronunciation lingered in Ireland and Scotland (where the song was written) after it had virtually disappeared from England. The word 'fever' would have been pronounced as 'favour', rhyming with 'save her' in the next line. That pronunciation is still sometimes used in this song, particularly in Ireland.