If they had a “soundtrack of the summer” back in 1726, it might have been the Ballad of Sweet Molly Mogg, said to have been composed in an English pub earlier that year by three infatuated customers. That the customers were Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Gay later added to the fame of the ditty. In the meantime, there was at least one shameless Irish attempt to replicate the big hit of 1726. Most of the verses were written to existing folk airs, many of them Irish and Scottish. And in its commercial and critical success, it was said to have “made Gay rich and Rich gay*” (*in the 18th-century meaning of the term).

Source: The Irish Times March 06, 2026 20:31 UTC