Molly Malone

DESCRIPTION: Singer tells of meeting sweet Molly Malone in Dublin, where she sold shellfish from a barrow; her parents were also fishmongers. She dies of a fever; now her ghost wheels the barrow. Chorus: "Singing 'Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1876 (Waite, Carmina Collegensia)
KEYWORDS: death food worker ghost disease commerce
FOUND IN: US Ireland
REFERENCES (10 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, pp. 44-45, "In Dublin's fair city" (1 text)
Fireside-Book-of-Folk-Songs, p. 22, "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 124, "Molly Malone" (1 text)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 96, "Molly Malone" (1 excerpt, from user Robloz, posted September 23, 2021)
Tobitt-TheDittyBag, p. 89, "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text, 1 tune)
SongsOfManyNations, "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text, 1 tune) (12th edition, p.13)
DT, MOLLYMAL*
ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 256, "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text)
Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, p. 12, "Molly Malone" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry Randall Waite, _Carmina Collegensia: A Complete Collection of the Songs of the American Colleges_ first edition 1868, expanded edition, Oliver Ditson, 1876, p. 73 [of part 3], "Cockles and Mussels" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FSWB124B (Partial)
Roud #16932
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "Molly Malone" (on PeteSeeger32)
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(82a), "Cockles and Mussels. Aliv, O" (sic.), Poet's Box (Dundee), c. 1890
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Walnut Girl" (subject)
NOTES [168 words]: We don't have "peddler" as a keyword -- pity. Meanwhile, I believe this started out as a Tin Pan Alley song? For better or for worse, it seems to have entered tradition -- at least, at every Irish gig I've played, some drunk asks for it. - PJS
Although the Poet's Box broadside is the earliest version I've found, it can hardly be the original; incredibly badly printed (Apart from the title, it can't decide if Miss Malone is Molly or "Melly," and the chorus runs "Alive, alive, O! alive, alive O! Crying Cockles and! alive, alive, O!"), and no tune is indicated. It has to be derivative.
The only source I've ever seen with a listed author was Robert Gogan's 130 Great Irish Ballads, which says that there is a London printing from 1884 calling it a comic song and attributing it to James Yorkston. I know nothing else about Yorkston. But observe that this is after the Waite printing.
Gogan also notes that there is actually a statue of Molly Malone in Dublin. Wish I knew who had put the thing up! - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: FSWB124B

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