Moll Kelly

alternative Moll Kelley

1. obsoleteA fictional person used in swearing oaths, especially "By the powers of Moll Kelly", often in caricatures of the speech of uneducated Irish people.

   'An Irish cat run away!' sneered Grammachree, 'no; never! by the powers of Moll Kelly! they eat one another up!'

   1821 "A Real Paddy" [Pierce Egan] Real Life in Ireland p.41

   5 more examples

   Hubbuboo! by my soul, it is all true that I tell ye, I stood it myself, till the heart in my belly Flew up to my mouth, by the soul of Moll Kelly! And the thing sav'd my life was the drop of a dram.

   1795 "Planxty Ne-Boch-Lech" The New Lyric Repository (London: J. Osborne) pp.102–103

   Bravo! bravo! och! by the powers of Moll Kelly's great big kettle, but we must be after having a toast now, so be after giving us a dacent one, Mr. Taffy.

   1826, “The Union Society”, in The Universal Songster: Or, Museum of Mirth, volume 3, London, page 237

   In fact, Paddy has oaths rising gradually from the lying ludicrous to the superstitious solemn, each of which finely illustrates the nature of the subject to which it is applied. When he swears "By the contints o' Moll Kelly's Primer," or "By the piper that played afore Moses," you are, perhaps, as strongly inclined to believe him as when he draws upon a more serious oath; that is, you almost regret the thing is not the gospel that Paddy asserts it to be.

   1834 William Carleton "Irish Swearing" Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (Second series, vol.1 p.345)

   Be the piper of Moll Kelly, you're a broth of a boy with the fair sex; go on and prosper; faith, I think you might turn Turk with advantage.

   1861 F. C. Armstrong The Frigate and the Lugger vol.I p.122 (London: T. Cautley Newby)

   Well, be the power of Moll Kelly, what do you think? I — I — I awoke! — for it was sleeping I was, all the time, and found myself partly covered by the coming-in tide!

   1871, “Bartle O'Barry”, in Queer customers: what they did, and what they didn't, page 147