In Dublin's Fair City

Where the girls are so pretty


I first set my eyes on


Sweet Molly Mallone


As she wheeled her wheelbarrow


Through the streets broad and narrow


Crying cockles and mussels


Alive Alive a ho ......



One of my favourite , favourite songs from childhood and for so many years Dublin meant only this song and the images of sweet Molly my young mind would conjure up .

I came upon the tribute in bronze to this first lady of Dublin , well for me at least , in the main market square and well though this was not how she was in the mind picture I had of her , here she is holding court in all her beauty...
The song continues in a sad vein
She died of a fever
And no one could save her ........
But her ghost wheels her barrow


Through the streets....





At the innaugural reception of the conference I had gone to attend there was this lovely young lady playing the harp and I asked her if she could play my song for me on her beautiful instrument. She smiled and said she did not have the music for it but of course knew the song . The next day at the conference dinner there was this musician playing the Irish pipes ( he showed me how they were definitley different from the Scottish Bagpipes) with the elbows pumping the "bellows" and he was so kind enough to play Sweet Molly Mallone for me. After whcih he said shyly he was very surprised to know that the "Lady from India" knew this old Irish song !!


O'Bhaiyya this one is for you : )