Origins: Molly Malone

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: masato sakurai
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 03:33 AM

International Movie Database (Word search: "molly malone" in soundtracks) returned:

Here are the soundtracks containing molly malone

1. Premature Burial, The (1962) - "Molly Malone"

2. Tree Grows in Brooklyn, A (1945) - "Molly Malone"

~Masato

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 06:14 AM

Why make Molly Malone into a London song anyway ? There already is a London song about a lass who sells seafood (sprats in this case) and comes to sad end "The Ratcatcher's Daughter". She also only ever seems to have fancied one fellow.

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy
Date: 12 Apr 02 - 09:13 AM

I still love Susan Reed's version of this song, real haunting long drawn out street peddlar's cry at the end. Lovely.

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: GUEST,gemma
Date: 24 Mar 04 - 12:26 PM

is folk music written by annonomouce people? please reply

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Mar 04 - 04:44 AM

This is.

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 10:08 PM

i found this website that has all the info about her http://www.bordercolliekennel.nl/story_of_molly_malone1.htm

go there it real good

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: Lady Hillary
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 10:49 PM

Last night, I happened to be at a party hosted by a Mr. Malone. His daughter [after 3 sons] was named Molly.

When I asked him whether his daughter was named after the song, he replied that she was.

He added that he had visited Dublin and when he got into a discussion with another lad in a pub the subject of Molly Malone came up. The other lad had a bit of discomfort at that point and when Mr. Malone asked him why, the discomfort grew. When pressed, the other let Malone know that "Molly Malone" is still used as a euphemism for prostitute.

Interesting convergence, hmmm.....alive, alive oh-o...

EBarnacle

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: masato sakurai
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:02 PM

Broadside ballad entitled 'Cockles and Mussels. Aliv, O' is at The Word on the Street - Broadsides at the National Library of Scotland.

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: masato sakurai
Date: 06 Mar 05 - 11:39 PM

There's another "Molly Malone" song by J. Gaspard Maeder (New York: Pond & Co., Wm. A., 1870). Click here.

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 10:21 AM

All this noxious stuff about Molly being a tart is the result of mixing two things - beer and jealousy. I can just picture all those nothing men sitting in bars and making up nasty stuff about "Molly Malone." Why? because she achieved a small amount of fame, and they never did.

It's a song that's lived because it feels good to sing it. Why ruin it?

Subject: RE: Help: History for Molly Malone please
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Mar 05 - 05:28 PM

GUEST leeneia, you may be missing the point. The claim that Molly was really a 17th-18th Century "tart" was intended to promote Dublin as a tourist destination in 1988. In other words, it's supposed to be a *good* thing ! Irish TV even held a press conference to spread the word. This website will tell you all about it.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~seanjmurphy/irhismys/molly.htm

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 05 Nov 05 - 02:43 PM

Molly Malone origin- So much nonsense!
"Cockles and Mussels," a comic song, written and composed by James Yorkston, a Scotsman, and published by Francis Brothers and Day, 1884, London (also an Edinburgh printing?- "printed by permission of Kohler and Son"). See broadside of "Cockles and Mussels" at NLS linked by Masato, above.
Also in an 1883(?) song book, U. S. (see second link, below).

See The Contemplator: Cockles and Mussels
Also Irish Historical Mysteries: Molly
This article, with references, details the nonsense and history of the myth, up to the Grafton Street Statue of 1988. "A farrago of invention."

There are several songs about a "Molly Malone," not of the fishy barrow, including the one by Maeder, linked by Masato, and one by George M. Cohan, 1927 (Levy Sheet Music, but not shown because of copyright).

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Molly Malone?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:19 AM

Molly Malone AKA the tart with the cart.

eric

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Molly Malone?
From: Fergie
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:25 AM

(cut and pasted from an older thread I started).

I found these lyrics by chance and I just had to post them.
For those who have no Gaeilge it is a translation of the good old singalong Molly Malone. Well I got a giggle out of them.

Mol Ní Mhaoileoin

I mBaile Athá Cliath, Ní fhaca mé riamh,
Aon chailín níos sciamhaí ná Mol Ní Mhaoileoin,
Ag stiúradh a barra,
gach áit ins a chathair,
Le ruacain is sliogáin, is iad go breá beo..

curfa:
Is iad go breá beo, is iad go breá beo,
Le ruacain is sliogáin, is iad go breá beo.

Ba mhangaire éisc í, an cheird di ab éasca,
Os amhlaidh dá muintir ó chianta fadó,
Ag stiúradh a mbarra,
gach áit ins a chathair,
Le ruacain is sliogáin, is iad go breá beo.

curfa:
Ach mo chreach is mo dhiacair, fuair Mol bocht an fiabhras,
Agus b'in i an chríoch bhí le Mol Ní Mhaoiloin,
Ach tá taibhse sa chathair,
ag stiúradh a barra,
Le ruacain is sliogáin, is iad go breá beo.
curfa:
Fergus

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Molly Malone?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 09:38 AM

Very good, Fergus. Anyone heard Frank Harte's rendition, where the "Co-ckles! and Mu-ssles! --Alive, Alive O!" is given in the manner of a street-chant, and is in my view the more effective for this. But what would a doctrinaire Irish "traditional" singer make of this performance; that is, when there seems to be a prohibition (among some - doctrinaire - singers) upon any element of characterization, interpretation, "coloring" the voice, etc etc? (Just a question that's been concerning me for some time)

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Molly Malone?
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:18 AM

Frank's comment on this song, which he sang regularly, used to be : "Never judge a song by the company it keeps!"

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Who wrote Molly Malone?
From: An Buachaill Caol Dubh
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 10:26 AM

Great stuff! Another "phrase and philosophy".

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,as a child
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 04:18 PM

I remember hearing and singing this song from childhood. As I've grown up, I've known so many people whose good name has been slandarized, even publically, as a result of one jealousy or another. And false or not, those slandars often remain as the only remembered testimony. And this is what I believe is the case regarding the history of Molly Malone.

As I recall, the question that is supposed to be asked is not who or what Molly Malone was, but rather who was the original singer and why did he sing this song about this woman?

It was told to me that the singer is actually her husband. Molly, a hard working woman from a hard working family, was seen by this young lad in his youth. He fell in love with her, married her, and eventually watched sadly as his wife died in his arms. The song is supposed to be both a tribute to her and a warning to us all not to miss the love as we may find it, or let the beautiful opportunity of life pass us by. A reminder that one day, it will be too late.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Apr 07 - 04:59 PM

As many myths as there are cockles and mussels.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,Bridgett
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 12:25 PM

I sang a song in school that is different than this one... I don't remember the title, only some of the lyrics... here's what I remember..
.. and Patrick O'Leary told Molly Malone, my darlin I'll come back for you... when the warm sun of kansas makes the grain grow tall my darlin I'll come back for you..

anyone know this???

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 12:52 PM

Geoghegan's song 'Cockles and Mussels' can be found on the British Library Collect Britain website under Victorian popular Music.
It is dated 1876 and the singer of the famous chorus is one 'Jim' not a Molly. The singer is a London Costermonger who is 'known the world over from Stepney to Bow'. The chorus runs
Fresh cockles and mussels alive, alive O!
Alive, O! alive O!
Alive, alive O! I call as I go,
Fresh cockles and mussels alive, alive O!

Geoghegan was born in Lancashire but lived a lot of his life in Sheffield. He wrote lots of songs we nowadays think of as folk songs and almost rivals the great Harry Clifton in this respect. He wrote 'Hey John Barleycorn', 'Ten Thousand Miles Away', 'I likes a drop of good beer', 'They all have a mate but me', 'Down in a Coal Mine', 'Johnny I hardly knew ye', 'Pat works on the Railway' etc etc.

Now regarding the origins of MM, if Yorkston wrote it in the 80s then obviously he was influenced by Geoghegan's song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 01:21 PM

Cries of street peddlers tended to be typical and at least semi-musical. Does anyone know if 19th C. peddlers actually sang out, "Alive, alive O! Cockles and mussels! Alive, alive O!" Maybe they even did it to something like the melody in "MM"!

If so, Yorkston may not have been plagiarizing - or not quite so much!

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 02:01 PM

GUEST,as a child, wrote:

It was told to me that the singer is actually her husband. Molly, a hard working woman from a hard working family, was seen by this young lad in his youth. He fell in love with her, married her, and eventually watched sadly as his wife died in his arms. The song is supposed to be both a tribute to her and a warning to us all not to miss the love as we may find it, or let the beautiful opportunity of life pass us by. A reminder that one day, it will be too late.

Where in the world did that come from? I've never heard ANYTHING similar to that about the lady of the boobs. If there's any basis for the dying-in-hubby's-arms story, I'd like to hear it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:21 PM

Nice rack!

But speaking of "fever," I think the way the lady is depicted here is mainly a matter of someone's fevered imagination.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 04:16 PM

Many years back a fellow I met, a visiting journalist from Leeds, England, postulated that Molly was actually a transplanted latter-day Luddite lass who was forced into fishmongering and ancillary activities by an unfeeling factory owner for whom the later casting of the statue was penance. I demurred, thinking the whole tale a little fishy...

He also mentioned the concept that Molly's ample "caboose" was the proximate origin of the rude term "broad." What can I say; he was obviously biased, not to mention the three bottles of "wee heavy" (McEwan's Scotch Ale) we had during the conversation.

Subject: RE: Other Molly Malone
From: Mysha
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 08:36 PM

Hi Bridgett,

I don't know the song, but seven years ago in
this thread someone tried to find a song that looks almost the same. The thread doesn't have the answer, but it does give a short version of the story. Maybe reading about it will jog your memory.

                                                                  Mysha

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 06:38 PM

Jonathan,
Couldn't find anything in Mayhew or Old London Street Cries other than plain old 'Mussels!' I'm sure I've seen a cut of something like what you describe though.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,Archie Caulfield
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 10:23 AM

Does the nom de guerre "The Molly Malones" for some kind of Secret Society/Workers' Protection Organisation in America in the nineteenth century pre-date James Yorkton's ballad? Or did they adopt this name forany known reason?

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 11:28 AM

Sure doesn't. You're thinking of the "Molly Maguires."

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 02:20 PM

Words I remember from the song:

Fair thee well, my darling, to America
I will wait in Ireland for thee
When the warm sun of Kansas
   Makes the grains grow tall
My darling, I'll come back for thee

A [wave] of Scarlet Fever started out in the West
And Patrick was so far from home
????
????, his Molly Malone

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Feb 11 - 04:39 PM

try this addy it gives a history ..hope it is what ur looking for http://mollymalones.com.cy/about-cyprus-and-ireland/molly-malone-story/

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: saulgoldie
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:35 AM

Funny cross-reference story. I smoke pipes. One of the great pipe-makers is Peterson. They make several iterations of the pipe we often envision when we think of Sherlock Holmes' pipe. They have come out with a "Molly Malone" line of pipes. I have asked them why. I will share with the group.

Saul

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: saulgoldie
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 11:24 AM

About the pipes:

I did an Internet search, and came up with this discussion from the listing on Smokingpipes.com:

"Peterson's Molly Malone set presents a fine pair of pipes named in honor of the enigmatic figure whose beauty and tragedy is the subject of the popular 19th century Irish ballad, and who is considered a symbol of the countless impoverished women of Dublin who made their meager livings as street-hawkers by day and, all too often, as part-time ladies-of-the-evening by night. For this two-pipe set, Peterson's chosen a sturdy, and rather full-bodied bent Brandy, as well as a bold and upright straight Rhodesian, each banded in sterling silver. They've also, for the box art, chosen an image of the bronze statue of Molly Malone by Jeanne Rynhart (known locally as the "Dolly With the Trolley"), which now stands at the end of Dublin's Grafton Street, and of whom it must be said, does certainly possess a decolletage positively made for marketing.

- Eric N. Squires"


I find the the idea that Peterson would create a pipe in honor of someone of low degree fascinating.

Saul

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,Narelle
Date: 13 Mar 12 - 11:36 PM

I am practising a song called Cockles and Muscles on my ukulele and it has brought back memories of a film I saw as a child. Problem is I cannot remember it title and would love to know the name of the person who produced it. I think Molly was a wonderful person who had a sad life and am appalled at all the insulting innuendo people have suggested as to her character. It seems people just like to throw mud.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: MartinRyan
Date: 21 Feb 13 - 04:51 PM

Came across a video of the late Frank Harte singing his version some years ago - with some ghostly harmonies!

Click here

Regards

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 22 Feb 13 - 03:25 PM

Farrago - by conjecture out of ignorance; thank heaven for people like the late Bruce O, Steve Gardam and Martin Ryan who base their conclusions on sound research and long experience.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Thompson
Date: 28 Jan 24 - 03:23 PM

What a dull thread. All that I get out of it, so far, is that men like to snigger about prostitutes, and that nobody's done any really solid research on the origins of this song.
A couple of factual points: seafood was a standard food in Dublin until the city grew to the size where sewage outflow destroyed the safe cockle and mussel beds; Dublin Bay Prawns and Clontarf Oysters were famous.
And the song sounds to me (not that I'm any kind of scientific researcher myself) like a typical children's play rhyme for skipping or ball-hopping - the rhythm and the short and basic number of verses.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Mar 24 - 07:38 PM

Molly now a luck fetish:


https://www.yahoo.com/news/stop-groping-breasts-molly-malone-141607763.html

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: Thompson
Date: 02 Mar 24 - 04:09 AM

Oh yeah, tourists love to have a grope. People are getting all indignant at the insult to our bronze lady's dignity.

Subject: RE: Origins: Molly Malone
From: skarpi
Date: 02 Mar 24 - 10:59 AM

Well, she was a young fishmonger woman who died of a high fever in 1699 in Dublin, I cant find anything about that she was selling her self, just that she was a young girl hardworking woman, the poem came first in 1884 in Dublin.

All the best Skarpi Iceland