Molly Malone and the sea

Today, on St. Patrick's Day, Irish people everywhere will be packed like sardines and drinking like fish down at the pub. You can be sure that they will be singing this song, Dublin's informal anthem:

Read the words here. Teachers: Activity from Spotlight in the Classroom.

The song's tragic heroine, Molly Malone, and her wheelbarrow full of seafood have come to stand as one of the most familiar symbols of the Irish capital. As a fishmonger living some 300 years ago, she hawked cockels and mussels during the daytime. It is understood, though never stated, that since she was poor and pretty, she also plied another trade after sunset. Hard-working even after death, her ghost is said to walk the streets even today. Her story is kept alive, alive o! in a statue that was erected on fashionable Grafton Street in time for the city celebrations of 1988. So is she a figure of fact or of fiction? Well, perhaps she's a bit of both. If you'll pardon the comparison, I would say that she's a little like fish and chips — she's fact and fiction. It's the combination that makes her legend simply irresistible.

On the next page, come and learn idioms and expressions connected to the sea.

Anne Hodgson