Where would you see the statue of Molly Malone? Who wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and Narrow? I am researching songs from the 1880s for a historical novel.
SONGS
Songs which would have been known in the 1880s and still sung today (hear them on YouTube) are:
My bonny lies over the ocean (Scottish
I used to sing this as a child and never thought about the fact that this is a Scottish song. The giveaway is the word bonny. As in bonny wee bairn (as we would say nowadays cute little kid).
My grandfather's clock
This song is from the USA. A great hit at the time and ever since.
Oh, no John (or Spanish Merchant's Daughter)
Lass of Richmond Hill
Molly Malone
These are all staple songs which are good to sing to entertain your group of friends or family if your tour bus or car is stuck in a traffic jam.
(I went on a tour guide training session led by Verity Baker, who taught us that a tour guide should keep card index cards for every sight passed on a tour, plus a few extras to bring out if the coach was delayed through a breakdown or in a traffic jam.)
The song Molly Malone has an interesting history which you can read in Wikipedia. Apparently whilst many girls were called Molly (a variation on Mary or Margaret) no one girl has been definitely associated with the song. However, because the song is the national song of the city of Dublin, capital of Eire (which used to be called and still is known to some people as southern Ireland), the city has chosen the dates of one girl called Molly Malone to be the day when the song and city are celebrated.
In Wikipedia you can see the picture of the statue of Molly Malone, with the low neck dress, because so many women of the day would be breastfeeding in public. I'd never heard that explanation of low necked dresses, always thought it was to do with the permissiveness of the age. Live and learn, as they say.
So now on my list of places to see in Ireland are:
Giants Causeway
Titanic Exhibition
Statue of Molly Malone, Dublin
The last fact which caught my attention was the English version of the song which transfers the setting to London, instead of 'as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow', the revised version is, 'As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through Wealdstone and Harrow ...' .
The local railway station is not called Wealdstone and Harrow but Harrow and Wealdstone.
The supposed Weald Stone, the stone marking the boundary of the Weald, or area, was supposedly rediscovered in the basement of the renamed Wealdstone Inn (I think it was previously a Red Lion or other name) in the 1950s. The Harrow council put up a historic heritage plaque telling the story of the Weald stone. Is it not the real, original Weald Stone? Never mind.
Unfortunately the old Weald Stone Inn was closed and is being renovated, so you cannot see the plaque, which I hope they will preserve, nor the stone. When the new building is revealed I shall take a picture or get somebody else to take a picture to record it for you to see the before and after of the Wealdstone site story.
Many variations and later parodies of traditional songs have been made and you can read many of them online. I spent a whole day reading the words and parodies of My grandfather's clock and hearing it sung in various version by different groups on YouTube. I was astonished to read it was based on a real incident. However, if clocks were wound up on a daily basis by the eldest in the family, they would sometimes stop on the day somebody died, especially if they were ill and the exertion of getting up to wind the clock was the thing which caused their demise.
(Equally likely, the clock didn't stop exactly when the person died, but when the person was discovered dead, the time of death was recorded as being when the clock stopped, at the last time shown by the clock. The hundreds of times a clock stopped before or after somebody died would never be noted.)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, English teacher, speaker and online tutor, writer of factual books and fiction.
SONGS
Songs which would have been known in the 1880s and still sung today (hear them on YouTube) are:
My bonny lies over the ocean (Scottish
I used to sing this as a child and never thought about the fact that this is a Scottish song. The giveaway is the word bonny. As in bonny wee bairn (as we would say nowadays cute little kid).
My grandfather's clock
This song is from the USA. A great hit at the time and ever since.
Oh, no John (or Spanish Merchant's Daughter)
Lass of Richmond Hill
Molly Malone
These are all staple songs which are good to sing to entertain your group of friends or family if your tour bus or car is stuck in a traffic jam.
(I went on a tour guide training session led by Verity Baker, who taught us that a tour guide should keep card index cards for every sight passed on a tour, plus a few extras to bring out if the coach was delayed through a breakdown or in a traffic jam.)
The song Molly Malone has an interesting history which you can read in Wikipedia. Apparently whilst many girls were called Molly (a variation on Mary or Margaret) no one girl has been definitely associated with the song. However, because the song is the national song of the city of Dublin, capital of Eire (which used to be called and still is known to some people as southern Ireland), the city has chosen the dates of one girl called Molly Malone to be the day when the song and city are celebrated.
In Wikipedia you can see the picture of the statue of Molly Malone, with the low neck dress, because so many women of the day would be breastfeeding in public. I'd never heard that explanation of low necked dresses, always thought it was to do with the permissiveness of the age. Live and learn, as they say.
So now on my list of places to see in Ireland are:
Giants Causeway
Titanic Exhibition
Statue of Molly Malone, Dublin
The last fact which caught my attention was the English version of the song which transfers the setting to London, instead of 'as she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow', the revised version is, 'As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through Wealdstone and Harrow ...' .
The local railway station is not called Wealdstone and Harrow but Harrow and Wealdstone.
The supposed Weald Stone, the stone marking the boundary of the Weald, or area, was supposedly rediscovered in the basement of the renamed Wealdstone Inn (I think it was previously a Red Lion or other name) in the 1950s. The Harrow council put up a historic heritage plaque telling the story of the Weald stone. Is it not the real, original Weald Stone? Never mind.
Unfortunately the old Weald Stone Inn was closed and is being renovated, so you cannot see the plaque, which I hope they will preserve, nor the stone. When the new building is revealed I shall take a picture or get somebody else to take a picture to record it for you to see the before and after of the Wealdstone site story.
Many variations and later parodies of traditional songs have been made and you can read many of them online. I spent a whole day reading the words and parodies of My grandfather's clock and hearing it sung in various version by different groups on YouTube. I was astonished to read it was based on a real incident. However, if clocks were wound up on a daily basis by the eldest in the family, they would sometimes stop on the day somebody died, especially if they were ill and the exertion of getting up to wind the clock was the thing which caused their demise.
(Equally likely, the clock didn't stop exactly when the person died, but when the person was discovered dead, the time of death was recorded as being when the clock stopped, at the last time shown by the clock. The hundreds of times a clock stopped before or after somebody died would never be noted.)
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, English teacher, speaker and online tutor, writer of factual books and fiction.
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