The Molly Malone statue on Suffolk Street in Dublin shows the fishmonger from the song “Molly Malone”, also known as “Cockles and Mussels” or “In Dublin's Fair City”. Jeanne Rynhart's bronze figure, pushing a cart of shellfish, has stood in the city centre since 1988. The twist is that nobody has ever proved Molly existed, and the song itself may not have been written in Ireland.
The Molly Malone statue at a glance
- Where: Suffolk Street, outside the former St Andrew's Church (now a tourist office), a few steps from the bottom of Grafton Street.
- Created: unveiled in 1988 during the Dublin Millennium celebrations; moved to its present spot in July 2014.
- By: the Dublin sculptor Jeanne Rynhart, on a commission from the Jurys hotel group.
- What it is today: one of Dublin's best-known street statues, a classic meeting point and a photo stop on the way between Trinity College and Grafton Street.
- Time needed: 5–10 minutes.
A song before a statue
The song tells of a young fishmonger who wheels her barrow “through streets broad and narrow”, crying “cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”, until she dies of a fever and her ghost carries on. Its earliest known printing is from 1876, in a college songbook published in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1884 a London edition credited words and music to James Yorkston of Edinburgh. A song called “Sweet Molly Malone” appears in a songbook from around 1790, but it has little in common with the one sung in Dublin pubs today.
In 1988 Dublin celebrated its Millennium, and the Dublin Millennium Commission backed the claim that the real Molly was a Mary Malone who died on 13 June 1699. It proclaimed 13 June Molly Malone Day, and the Lord Mayor, Ben Briscoe, unveiled Rynhart's statue at the bottom of Grafton Street the same year. In April 2014 the statue was taken away and stored during the works for the Luas tram line, and in July 2014 it was put back a short distance away, on Suffolk Street.
What to look for
- The cart: Molly pushes a handcart loaded with baskets of cockles and mussels, the goods from the song's chorus.
- The low-cut dress: her neckline earned the statue the Dublin nickname “the Tart with the Cart”.
- The worn patches: the statue has a dark brown patina, but years of tourists rubbing her chest “for luck” have polished parts of it back to bright metal. The habit reportedly started with a tour guide's suggestion.
- The flowerbeds around the base: Dublin City Council added them in 2025, after a trial with stewards, to keep people from groping the statue.
Was Molly real?
Treat Molly as a character, not a historical person. Historians have found nothing linking the Mary Malone of 1699 to the song, and the Irish literary historian Siobhán Kilfeather dismissed the story of a historical Molly as nonsense. A popular version adds that Molly sold fish by day and worked as a prostitute by night; there is no evidence for that either. In 2024 a Dublin busker started a campaign called “Leave Molly mAlone” against the touching, and the singer Imelda May has also spoken out against it.
Tips for your visit
- Come early in the morning if you want a photo without a crowd: the corner of Suffolk Street gets busy from late morning, especially when tour groups pass.
- Please don't rub the statue. Dubliners have asked visitors for years to leave Molly alone, and the touching wears away the finish.
- Listen to the song before you go, or ask in a pub in the evening: it is still sung all over the city, often as Dublin's unofficial anthem.
Nearby
- Grafton Street: Dublin's main pedestrian shopping street begins right around the corner and is known for its buskers.
- Trinity College Dublin: the university founded in 1592, home of the Book of Kells, a few minutes' walk away.
- St Stephen's Green: the Victorian city park at the top of Grafton Street, good for a break on a bench by the pond.
- Dublin Castle: for centuries the seat of British rule in Ireland, about ten minutes' walk west, and one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
See Dublin with World City Trail
Our Dublin scavenger hunt turns the city centre into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around 3 hours, with just under an hour of walking. It includes Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and St Patrick's Cathedral.
If you prefer a different format, there is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Dublin.
Play the Dublin scavenger hunt →
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Facts checked in October 2026.