New Series: Famous Malones throughout history. Part 1 - Dublin's Finest Molly Malone

Molly Malone, Dublin's most famous fishmonger, is a chaste maiden to some and "the tart with the cart" to othersEveryone agrees that Molly Malone is one of the more famous people in the history of Dublin. Whether she’s a person who ever really existed is another question.

She’s certainly one of the strangest icons ever commemorated officially by a city government. The statue of her on lower Grafton Street, erected in 1987, depicts a woman in a 17th century dress that shows so much cleavage Madonna might be unwilling to wear it. The old song about her, “Cockles and Mussels,” is a sort of unofficial anthem of Dublin, sung regularly by fans at soccer and hurling matches. How this young woman who allegedly sold fish by day, sold her body by night and died young of an undefined fever is a long and twisted tale indeed.