She wants them to keep their hands to themselves.
A college student is on a mission to protect an Irish statue that is frequently groped by passersby.
Pedestrians are known to get handsy with Dublin’s bronze statue of the fictional Molly Malone because of her low-cut dress as well as the urban myth that touching her will bring them good luck.
Tourists and locals alike are frequently photographed fondling the figure’s chest area, so much so that the bronze in that location has faded.
“Generally it’s people standing up to get a picture and groping Molly’s breasts, usually from behind. Often you get people kissing her breasts or putting their faces in them and they’re generally really loud and rowdy,” singer-songwriter Tilly Cripwell, a singer-songwriter, told CNN Travel.
“When you’re busking you spend a couple of hours at a time in a spot and I just saw this behavior so often and one day I had just had enough and thought if I’m going to continue to busk there then I need to stop this.”
Cripwell, 23, a student at Trinity College who busks at the statue, is disgusted by its blatant mistreatment, and launched a #LeaveMollymAlone social media campaign last year.
She’s also visited Dublin City Council to advocate for the mishandled statue.
“The main thing is to have the statue raised on a higher pedestal, which will match the majority of male statues here, and also to have the whole statue repainted so that there’s no discoloration on her breasts,” Cripwell explained.
The statue of Molly Malone, whose name is the title of the city’s unofficial anthem, which tells of a young seafood seller who died of a fever, was unveiled in 1988.
The song, which starts with the lyrics “In Dublin’s fair city, Where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone, As she wheeled her wheel-barrow, Through streets broad and narrow, Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!” has been covered by artists such as U2 and Sinéad O’Connor.
On International Women’s Day (March 8), Cripwell, who estimates the statue is touched by 60 people every hour, released a song called “Leave Molly mAlone.”
“In such a dark, stagnant point in the history of female rights, permanent changes to Molly Malone mark a small, but crucial step in the right direction, which can only lead to further movement in this direction,” she wrote in an Instagram post.
Cripwell herself has also been harassed just because she is standing near the statue.
“The other day some French tourists also mimed groping me after groping her from maybe a meter away,” she told the outlet.
“The main thing that gets me is that it’s a really bad example on the standards we’re setting for behavior around women in society.”
