"In Dublin's Fair City"
"Molly Malone," also known as "In Dublin's Fair City" or "Cockles and Mussels," is an Irish folksong, still well known and sung in Ireland and in America. It reflects on a young woman, Molly Malone, who hawked cockles, mussels, and other seafood "wheeled in her wheelbarrow" throughout the streets of Dublin. The third verse chronicles her death of a fever, "and no one could save her, And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone." Indeed, young deaths by fever would have been very likely in urban areas before the 20th century. A Dublin commission has recently suggested her to be a real person, a Mary Malone who died on 13 June 1699, and so they have commemorated June 13th to be "Molly Malone Day." There is also a statue of her in Dublin today (see carousel above).
The first known publication appears not to have been until 1876 from a Boston, Massachusetts publisher. Thus, some suggest it might not be based on a folksong but newly written. Regardless, it does follow the folk-ballad patter and sad chronicling of the death of a beloved. For more about the song, see here.
We learned all three verses in two-part harmony in 2025 (heard here); in 2026, just the young men sang it (pictured above).
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- Part 5: Folk Songs Alisa Clapp-Itnyre