Sminky, yes I have the online version of the 1876 Jim the Mussel Man version of 'Cockles and Mussels' by J B Geoghegan. The 1884 Molly Malone version of 'Cockles' attributed to James Yorkston is also in the British Library but alas apparently not yet online. Perusing my hardcopy of the latter, I note again how precisely this classic Molly version is described as 'Written and Composed by James Yorkston', also that it was 'Reprinted from No. 35, Musical Treasury, by permission of Messrs Kohler & Son, 11 North Bridge, Edinbro'.

So far I have not traced a copy of Kohler's 'Musical Treasury' No. 35, but did find a copy of No. 77 for the month of October 1885, indicating that No. 35 would have been published in or about March 1882. Given that the earliest sheet music version of the Molly 'Cockles' traced to date was published in a collection of college songs in Boston, Mass, in 1876, with no composer's name (new info to be added to my web article), the Yorkston version no longer appears as original as before.

You have already discussed here transatlantic connections between music hall composers and performers, eg, Tony Pastor and J B Geoghegan, whose 'Down in a Coal Mine' was a favourite of Pastor. Now was the Molly Malone 'Cockles and Mussels' as published in 1876 a European import, or should we also pay some attention to the possibility that it could have been an Hiberno-American creation, like 'Finnegans Wake'? If Yorkston was indeed the composer he must have been the proverbial one-hit wonder as nothing else of his has registered on the same scale. Which brings me back again to the recently discovered 'Ladies' Treasury' 1882 attribution of the Dublin 'Cockles and Mussels', to 'Mr Geoghegan'. Again, were the editors confusing the Jim the Mussel Man and Molly Malone versions, or were they in fact well informed? Steve G observes that 'Yorkston's chorus is a straight rip-off of Geoghegan's', but shouldn't we seriously now ask if Geoghegan could have written both songs, recycling elements of whichever was the earliest in the later version?

A final thought: if Joseph B Geoghegan was indeed also the composer of the Molly Malone version of 'Cockles and Mussels', could Messrs Kohler perhaps have been wary of causing scandal for the above mentioned namesake James Geoghegan, respectable choirmaster of the Old Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh 1857-83, deciding to play it safe by inserting the name of their trusty arranger James Yorkston as composer? I have been on this case since 1989, the mystery remains unresolved, the questions continue to multiply, but our friend J B Geoghegan is now more firmly in the frame.