I started my campaign, Leave Molly mAlone, in February 2024. I am a musician who regularly busks by the Molly Malone Statue just off Grafton Street. I became increasingly frustrated by what has now become normal and even “traditional behaviour”: touching Molly Malone’s breasts “for good luck”. The statue’s breasts are poignantly a shiny, bronze colour compared with the rest of her dark figure, from the amount of people that have touched her over the years.

One day, having spent hours busking next to the statue and seen countless acts of unsavoury, rowdy, misogynistic behaviour, I decided that, if I wanted to keep busking by the statue, I needed to put a stop to this behaviour. I launched my campaign, Leave Molly mAlone, that evening. I feel passionate about this cause because violence towards women is such a prevalent issue in society, almost to an extent where it is normalised, since society is so used to hearing cases of violence towards women. I witnessed this being further normalised and promoted by the trend of touching the statue’s breasts, something which is no Irish tradition, but rather something started by tourists seeing Molly’s “busty” dress as an opportunity to reduce her to her body. This neglects her legacy as one of the few female statues in Dublin, and a striking symbol of the Irish working class in the 17th and 18th centuries. Seeing children encouraged by their parents to touch the statue’s breasts breaks my heart and makes me question the type of behaviour we are condoning and promoting to future generations. The thought of a woman who has faced misogyny walking past the statue and seeing this as a “tradition” also really upsets me.