Born: Unknown, Ireland
Died: Unknown
Country most active: Ireland
Also known as: NA
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Patrick Long. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Malone, Molly (or Mollie) , heroine of song, was probably a generic fishmonger and street trader of nineteenth-century Dublin. Molly (the name is derived from ‘Mary’), is named in a popular, unofficial anthem of the city (‘Cockles and mussels’ or ‘Molly Malone’) as a fishmonger’s daughter who died of a fever and subsequently haunted Dublin in ghostly form with her barrow and renowned street-cry ‘Cockles and mussels, alive, alive o!’ The legend or myth lacks definite origin but has grown from a simple if melodic ballad to a near-industry in modern Dublin, particularly in tourism.
Internationally recognised as a symbol of Dublin, Molly, like ‘Dicey Reilly’ of another well-known ballad, probably never existed in person but outlasted actual Dublin ‘characters’ in the popular imagination, proving the potency of historical fiction. With no reliable evidence, certain citizens of Dublin named Molly (or Mary) Malone, whose burial records date from modest antiquity, have been imagined as the eponymous heroine. Indeed, some ranging from 1699 to 1734 at the demolished St John’s churchyard (Church of Ireland) at Fishamble St. near Christ Church cathedral have been offered as suggestions, even proof, of her existence.
The familiar song featuring Molly Malone makes no recorded appearance, however, till the late nineteenth century, although from at least 1860 a number of racehorses (and a greyhound) have borne the name. Modern research indicates that the earliest surviving sheet music and lyrics are those of Edinburgh-based composer James Yorkston, published in London by Francis Brothers & Day in 1884 as ‘Cockles and mussels’ with the permission of Yorkston’s Edinburgh associates Kohler & Son. In the same study, although an earlier version of the same song was not located, a different song, also entitled ‘Cockles and mussels’, by James B. Geoghegan about a London vendor, is dated to 1876. Curiously, Yorkston’s arranger on ‘Cockles and mussels’, Edmond Forman, also worked with Geoghegan.
The study, published in a pamphlet by Sean Murphy in 1992, was prompted by Dublin’s so-called ‘Millennium’ of 1988, whose legacy amounted mainly to improved pedestrian streets heralding a new-found official policy in favour of urban renewal; it gave rise to a number of public sculptures, the most widely recognised of which was Jeanne Rynhart’s large bronze, ‘Molly Malone’. When this was installed, complete with barrow, at the junction of Grafton St. and Suffolk St., controversy surrounded its scale, location, and the period style (and low cut) of the dress. Sceptics suggested that if Molly existed she would be more Victorian consumptive than Williamite wench, and that the statue belonged half a mile away in the neighbourhood of Fishamble St. and Christ Church cathedral.
Added to the known versions of ‘Cockles and mussels’, including pub and rugby songs, the statue became an instant landmark and tourist attraction, photographed incessantly by visitors and dubbed locally as ‘the tart with the cart’. Numerous commercial copies and other by-products, including a rendition of Yorkston’s ballad by passing tour-bus drivers, thus ensured the survival of Molly Malone, true or false, into another generation. On 16 February 2000, by an interesting twist of local history, her song was played in St John’s Lane church at the funeral mass of the Rev. F. X. Martin, a renowned campaigner for the preservation of medieval Dublin at Wood Quay.