Who is Molly Malone?

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Posted by Jim on Sep 6, 2008 71 views

On a bus trip shore excursion in Dublin, we drove past a statue of a woman with a cart. The bus driver started singing a song, and my wife joined in. I don’t know who else of the 40 or so on the bus song along. I did not. I have never heard of this woman, her song, or her business selling shellfish in Dublin and across the Irish countryside.

Are there other songs about Irish business woman? If she was so successful, are all Irish girls named Molly named after this Molly as a form of good luck and fortune?

And the statue is nicknamed “The tart with the cart” - and goes with other items that she was a fishmonger during the day and a whore at night. Or if you look deeper, that the fishmonger was a slang phrase for a pimp, selling prostitutes. Drunken Irish man and Irish woman selling themselves? How did I miss this story?

For our family video DVD, I downloaded the Sinead O’Conner version of the song. As a Frank SInatra fan, of course I hate her personally and pay no attention to any celebrities rantings and ravings. Anna hates her because she is not a fat woman, and because she hates all woman who are not stay at home moms. She says I exaggerate the point, but I reminded her of this same point a few days ago when we discussed our future Vice President and her family.

Here are the lyrics to Molly Malone
In Dublin’s fair city where girls are so pretty
Twas there that I first met sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through street broad and narrow
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”

Alive, alive oh, alive, alive oh,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”

Now she was a fishmonger and sure twas no wonder
For so were her mother and father before
And they each wheeled their barrows
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive oh”

She died of a faver 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”

I asked Anna why she did not teach this song to the girls before our trip, or ask the driver if we could stop for a picture. Seems like a famous spot to some people.