> Tim Hart and Friends > Songs > Cockles and Mussels

Cockles and Mussels / Molly Malone

[ Roud 16932 ; Ballad Index FSWB124B ; Folkinfo 618 ; DT MOLLYMAL ; Mudcat 16278 ; trad.]

Tim Hart sang Cockles and Mussels in 1983 on Tim Hart and Friends’ album Drunken Sailor and Other Kids Songs. This track was later included on their compilation CD Favourite Nursery Rhymes and Other Children’s Songs.

Martyn Wyndham-Read sang Cockles and Mussels in 1984 on the Greenwich Village album The Old Songs.

The Dubliners sang Molly Malone on their 1987 album Celebration (25 Years) and on the 1994 French anthology Planète Celtique.

Frank Harte sang Cockles and Mussels in 1987 on his Faetain album Daybreak and a Candle-End. He noted:

I know nothing of the origins of this song and I have not met anybody who knows any more than myself, but it is one of the first songs that I remember learning as a child from my father. I was told by an American student who was doing research into the shellfish industry in Ireland that it was more than likely that Molly Malone had died from typhoid fever which she would have picked up from eating tainted mussels. This is one of those songs that one hears sung more often by trained singers, choirs or raucous rugby players rather than by ballad singers. However, just because such a great song has fallen on hard times and mixed in the above company for too long, it should not be neglected by the unaccompanied singer.

Gordon Hall sang Molly Malone in a home recording made in the early 1990s that he included on his cassette anthology Warts & Hall.

Isla St Clair sang Molly Malone on her 2002 album My Generation.

Dervish sang Molly Malone n 2019 on their Rounder album The Great Irish Songbook.

Lyrics

Tim Hart sings Cockles and Mussels

In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty,
There I first set eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow,
Through the streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels alive, alive o”

Chorus (after each verse):
“Alive, alive o, alive, alive o,”
Crying, “Cockles and mussels
Alive, alive o.”

She was a fishmonger, and that was no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they both wheeled their barrow,
Through the streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels alive, alive o”

She died of a fever, and no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone;
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through the streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels alive, alive o”

Frank Harte sings Cockles and Mussels

In Dublin’s fair city
Where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheel-barrah
Through the streets broad and narrah
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!”

Now she was a fishmonger
And sure ’twas no wonder
For her father and mother were fishmongers too
As she wheeled her wheel-barrah
Through the streets broad and narrah
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!”

Now she died of the fever
And no one could save her
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone
But her ghost wheels her ’barrah
Through the streets broad and narrah
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!”

Alive, alive-O! alive, alive-O!
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O!”