the kieran/molly masterpost (aka, why i ship them and why you should too):
while they both share irish ancestry and experiences as irish immigrants (second gen in kieran's case), their relationship with their heritage is quite different, and they’re from very different backgrounds, with very different life experiences and personalities, wherein she clearly has a higher social status than him. however within the camp hierarchy they occupy the same low position/status, with varying degrees of self-recognition of that — and that’s a very interesting dynamic.
i don't think either molly or kieran would consider themselves on the same level socially, but the reality is that they have no influence or power within or over the camp in their own right, and their security is dependent on other's tolerating them. even if they don't recognise that they share this position, they are clearly self-aware as both openly communicate how insecure they feel in camp.
plus, as the game goes on, dutch is less and less interested in showing molly basic respect and attention, so whatever her position in camp is is fundamentally on a decline (while kieran's can only improve as time goes on).
there’s that scene where kieran rides in the carriage with her (despite having his own horse) and gives her a hand out of the carriage at one point and that suggests that they had a relationship of some sort, even if it wasn't shown in-game. she's upset at kieran's death, for example.
it also begs the question: how much kindness does she receive from people? some of the girls do try to include her — abigail calls a "sweet girl" and "actually a nice girl", mary-beth defends her to tilly, karen seems increasingly concerned for her, tries to comfort her, and is furiously upset over her death — but she does seem somewhat isolated/ostracised from the rest of the group, as a whole, with tilly admitting she "never liked her anyway" after she's killed.
partially that’s her own fault, because she can be snobby and elitist... and, to be fair, i bet she’d look down her “pretty little nose” at kieran just the same. the difference is that kieran probably wouldn’t be a threat to her. he’d probably be kind to her, i don’t know why he wouldn’t be and he seems generally to be the kind sort, and like i said: he does not have the kind of position required to be a threat to her. for as snobby as she can be, she seems to respond well to the slightest bit of kindness directed towards her (she calls tilly "sweetie" even when tilly does not like her, she's very amiable to arthur when he replaces her mirror).
on the other hand, kieran seems to be a lot more comfortable and confident with the women of the camp, he's able to brush off karen throwing a cigarette in his face and have playful/friendly chats with her, for example. he seems fairly gregarious, and readily approaches people and try and build connections with people, especially women —nothing like the shy, retreating way he is popularly characterised as in fandom. so, there is something interesting in kieran having a bit more of a level footing with her.
and so: molly and kieran, both desperately lonely and desperate for kindness and some positive attention, and also both completely ostracised from any meaningful role in camp otherwise, should fuck.
maybe she’s just so lonely and sexually frustrated and insecure about herself and needing some attention and validation and, quite simple, needing to get off, and maybe kieran's the safest, or least most low stakes option: kieran can’t hurt her, kieran wouldn’t.
or maybe she's just being self-destructive, and sex with kieran is something like picking at her wounds (and she otherwise engages in self-harming behaviours such as drinking and deliberately putting herself in harm's way, and sex can absolutely be part of that, so it's absolutely possible) that maybe there’s an element of self-sabotage here, of sleeping with the enemy, of lowering herself to sleeping with kieran duffy, of all people.
maybe it's out of spite. kieran won't hurt her, but maybe sleeping with an o’driscoll would hurt dutch in a way that she otherwise can’t.
and maybe kieran is nervous, at first, because what if it is a trick? what if he's caught with dutch's girl, of all people? but he's reckless, after all: we can see that he's a lot more confident than fandom often acknowledges in several interactions, such as his flirting with mary-beth — which, irrespective of what he says, absolutely is being forward. and he's surely just as lonely as molly is, and god only knows how long it's been since he's had sex, so maybe it's not so hard to believe that he'd end up sleeping with molly o'shea, of all people.
maybe that's how it starts. but what if it continued after the first time? for all the excuses (loneliness, masochism, spite), it's a lot harder to justify how they keep finding each other after the first time.
and molly insists she really does love dutch, and kieran has to sit with the knowledge that molly isn't wholly dutch's anymore, every time dutch takes her to their tent, and maybe kieran hears them having sex (maybe he even sees them, tents provide very little in the way of privacy) and kieran insists he really is not jealous.
and in the meantime, kieran's flirting with mary-beth, and dutch is flirting with mary-beth, and there's great potential for drama over molly's insecurities and jealousy over poor mary-beth, and how much it hurts her that kieran, too, has eyes for her.
and, really, why shouldn't she like kieran? he's sweet and I do think he could clean up nicely. under the mottled skin and tired eyes and scraggly beard, he looks a lot like his actor, who is very pretty. he has a nice voice, and he’s probably got strong hands because of his working with the horses. i absolutely see him as the more experienced of the two, and casually dominant in bed.
i genuinely think that kieran lied about how involved he was with the o'driscolls, and i think he's probably been involved in some of the uglier parts of gang life. i think he smacks of the trope of the bad boy with the heart of gold in a way that, let's be honest, is exactly what molly is all about.
there's this dialogue where kieran stands up for women in the camp. it would be a crying shame if we didn't take advantage of it.
PARALLELS! their outfits are complimentary (both wear green, both wear blue/white ensembles), then there's the thematic connection of luck: kieran "isn't known for his luck" and molly asks for a new mirror "and some better luck".
