A years-long campaign by a Dublin busker outraged by the symbolic sexual harassment of the statue of Molly Malone may be bearing fruit with a plan to raise the statue out of reach of gropers.
The statue of the legendary Dublin hawker of cockles and mussels stands outside a Dublin church and near the city’s tourism office; over the years a ‘tradition’ has developed of rubbing the statue’s breasts ‘for good luck,’ leaving the area burnished.
Tilly Cripwell, who busks near the statue ten hours a week, started the campaign, previously reported in TravelGumbo, under the rubric of ‘Leave Molly mAlone.’
“The majority of people will touch her boobs for good luck, that’s a misogynistic tradition,” Ms Cripwell said. “A lot of people clamor around her, kiss her on the cheek, kiss her boobs, it’s all inappropriate. It’s reducing her to this derision and not giving her the status of being a national treasure. I walk by the Oscar Wilde statue in Merrion Square every day. You don’t see people rubbing his crotch for good luck.”
