Molly Malone, Dublin

Molly Malone is the statue of the song’s fishmonger, a familiar Dublin figure with a distinctly theatrical presence. Jeanne Rynhart designed the sculpture, which was unveiled during the city’s 1988 millennium celebrations. The figure wears clothing intended to evoke a young woman of the seventeenth century, with a low-cut bodice above a long chemise and skirt.

The ballad tells of Molly selling cockles and mussels from a barrow, then dying young from fever; no surviving record connects her to a real woman. In 2014, the statue was removed for Luas construction, repaired, and given back its original dark brown finish, apart from areas polished by years of touching. It was then placed on Suffolk Street beside the tourist office. Dubliners call her “the Tart with the Cart.”