In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty
I first laid my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through the streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

A-live a-live O! A-live a-live O!
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

She was a fishmonger and sure t’was no wonder
For so was her father and mother before
And they all wheeled their barrows through the streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

A-live a-live O! A-live a-live O!
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live 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 a-live O!

Molly tapped me on the shoulder on Level 5 at the Vancouver Public Library at Georgia and Hamilton  in late 2003 as I was searching through microfiches.

But as I listen to Irish Folk Songs, like this favorite rendition of Molly Malone, I wonder if I didn’t instead run into Molly’s ghost wandering- since 1947- along Georgia Street.

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night

And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away.

– Shakespeare, Hamlet