Moll Kelly

English

Alternative forms

Moll Kelley

Proper noun

Moll Kelly

(obsolete) A fictional person used in swearing oaths, especially "By the powers of Moll Kelly", often in caricatures of the speech of uneducated Irish people.
- 1795 "Planxty Ne-Boch-Lech" The New Lyric Repository (London: J. Osborne) pp.102–103:
  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.
- 1821 "A Real Paddy" [Pierce Egan] Real Life in Ireland p.41:
  'An Irish cat run away!' sneered Grammachree, 'no; never! by the powers of Moll Kelly! they eat one another up!'
- 1826, “The Union Society”, in The Universal Songster: Or, Museum of Mirth, volume 3, London, page 237:
  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.
- 1834 William Carleton "Irish Swearing" Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry (Second series, vol.1 p.345):
  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.
- 1861 F. C. Armstrong The Frigate and the Lugger vol.I p.122 (London: T. Cautley Newby):
  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.
- 1871, “Bartle O'Barry”, in Queer customers: what they did, and what they didn't, page 147:
  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!
- 1899 December 15 "New Cure for 'Pindycutis. And Other Medical Lore Imparted by Mr. Rafferty to His Friend Mr. Madden." Monthly Retrospect of Medicine & Pharmacy (Philadeplphia) Vol.V No.8 p.875:
  'By the hairs o' Moll Kelley's cat,' says he, 'there's the mikerobes of rheumatiz,' says he.
- 1902, John Thomas McIntyre, The Ragged Edge: A Tale of Ward Life & Politics, McClure, Phillips, page 180:
  "Be the powers av Moll Kelly!" ejaculated the saloonkeeper, "but that bates all, yet!["]
- 1909, Theron Brown, Under the Mulberry Trees: A Romance of the Old 'forties, Richard G. Badger, Gorham Press, page 125:
  By the powers o' Moll Kelly, 'f I'd a ben there when ye turned Hepsy an her baby out doors I'd 'a made you carry home a hornet in yer hat, law or no law.
- 1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC:
  And be the powers of Moll Kelly, neighbour topsowyer, it will be a lozenge to me all my lauffe.
  p.298 (New York: Viking Press)