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

Molly is commemorated in a statue designed by Jeanne Rynhart [1], 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 Dish With The Fish' 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, breasts were popped out all over the place'. [2]

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)

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.

• Former Pink Floyd bandmate Roger Waters references Molly Malone in his song Flickering Flame as sitting with Leopold Bloom.

• Roger Corman's 1962 film "The Premature Burial" prominently features the song throughout.

• In the movie A Clockwork Orange, there is a drunken vagrant singing the song.

• In the M*A*S*H episode "That's Show Biz" a USO troupe visits the camp and the song is perfomed by one of the troup for the patients in Post-Op.

• In Helsinki, Finland, Molly Malone's is the name of the city's most famous Irish Pub.

• In both Bilbao and León in Spain, there is a famous pub named Molly Malone.

• The song "Eli, the Barrow Boy," from The Decemberists album Picaresque could be interpreted as another side to Molly Malone.

• In Disney Channel Original Movie "Luck of the Irish" a group of leprechauns sing the song while drinking in celebration of finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow towards the end of the film.

• The band Flogging Molly is named after an Irish pub in L.A., named Molly Malone's.

• There are Irish pubs called Molly Malone's in Singapore and Phuket

• In Piers Anthony's book On a Pale Horse, the new incarnation of Death meets the ghost of Molly Malone on the streets of Dublin.

• Dublin statues and their nicknames

• An article about Molly Malone
• Molly Malone "Cockles And Mussels" diverse songs and Clip courtesy of Dan O'Donnell.