Moll Kelly

Proper noun

 * 1)  A fictional person used in swearing oaths, especially "By the powers of Moll Kelly", often in caricatures of the speech of uneducated Irish people.
 * 2) * 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.
 * 1) * 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!'
 * 1) * 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.
 * 1) * 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.
 * 1) * 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.
 * 1) * 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.