Most countries have laws in place to protect unwanted touching on a person’s body. But where is the line drawn when it comes to diddling representations of people? The popular Molly Malone statue in Dublin, Ireland, has some pondering the bodily autonomy of statues, and what can or should be done to “protect” them from unsolicited advances.
Why is everyone talking about the Molly Malone statue?
On Mar. 17., 2025, X user @beyoncegarden posted a video with a theme tangentially tied to St. Patrick’s Day: the famous Molly Malone statue, continuously groped by what assumedly are tourists visiting Ireland. The video went viral with over 38.6M views, 147K likes, 14K reposts, 13K saves, and 4.1K comments.
“This is so weird and disgusting like it’s just sad,” @beyoncegarden wrote in the caption of the post.
The video shows a large, bronze statue of a woman holding onto a wooden cart that carries baskets of food. Periodically, people will come up to the statute to have their photo taken with it, repeating the same action as the photo-taker before them – placing one or both hands on the breasts of the statue, as if to violate Molly Malone herself.
Two trending audio sound bytes are also played over the street scene: “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, and the voice of internet personality Brittany Broski, from an episode of her YouTube show The Broski Report entitled, “I’m Building Jurassic Park.”
Who was Molly Malone?
Molly Malone is a figure in Irish culture. It’s unclear as to whether or not she existed in real life, but she’s been the subject of songs, stories, and Irish folklore for decades.
@theuss_back Leave her breast She’s so tired #Dublin #mollymalone #statue ♬ slow living (a quiet life) – Ophelia Wilde
According to BBC, “the statue was first erected in Dublin’s Grafton Street in 1988, created by the renowned bronze sculptor, Jeanne Rynhart,” and many locals find the inappropriate behavior offensive and crude.
To honor Malone’s legacy, some have taken to campaigning for a different placement of the statue or creating some kind of protection from visitors and their grabby hands.
“An Irish woman has started a campaign to LEAVE MOLLY M ALONE!,” X user @honouringtruth mentioned in @beyoncegarden’s comments. “I left a message on the Insta post & so many men came on dismissing this & laughing. I countered – how would you feel if a public statue of a man, pants down, balls exposed & shiny with ‘handling’ – would you feel disrespected as a man? No man replied!”
Tilly Cripwell, a student at Trinity College and a singer who performs on the streets of Dublin, launched the campaign after getting fed up with the way people seemingly disrespected the statue.
Calling it a “misogynistic tradition,” Cripwell spoke to the Irish Times about her desire to have more protections in place so that Malone’s legacy could remain unviolated.
“It’s reducing her to this derision and not giving her the status of being a national treasure,” she explained.
Why do people touch statues inappropriately?
Image-based social media apps make it easier than ever to share photos of what we do while traveling. This includes images next to famous historic statues and monuments, so why not get a cheeky genital rub in while you’re smiling for the ‘gram?
“I get what she’s saying but also maybe it’s not that big a deal,” X user @arobin0888 replied in the comments. “People like touching the fun bits on statues.”
@arobin0888 replied with four images of various male statues whose penises had been turned a different shade than the rest of the body, indicating people had touched these areas so much they changed color.
“I’m gonna hold your hand when i tell you this,” @beyoncegarden responded, to which several X users asked for confirmation of what they meant as it seemed unclear.
Many statues come with lore related to the touching of certain parts or places. Sometimes it’s for “good luck,” others are related to romance and fertility, or even gaining more wisdom and strength.
“This is the Juliet statue in Verona Italy,” wrote X user @akamezim in the comments, along with several images of the statue being touched by women. “Touching her right breast, according to lore of unknown origin, is said to bring luck.”
The same is allegedly said about Molly Malone’s breasts – that rubbing, touching, or groping them will give you the “luck of the Irish” or at least entice you back to Ireland. No one has yet to claim if the legend is true, but the practice still occurs all the same.
Is touching statues a harmless tradition—or something more sinister?
Broski’s trending audio is often used to raise awareness about touching statues inappropriately, especially related to female statutes. “It’ll be a statue of a woman, like a beautiful statue of a woman,” Broski starts. “She was such an influential and powerful woman. And they’ll zoom in on her face, and they’ll zoom in on the plaque, and then they’ll zoom out and show a full body, and it’ll show that one of her breasts has been basically rubbed off…”
“And that’s now her legacy,” she continues. “She is now a sex object to be looked at…what she did with her life now is secondary to the fact that she’s got a rack…. And it makes me sad. And I hope she gets a new statue that’s untouched by men.”
The internet weighs in: is it really a big deal?
Others seemed to defend the idea of feeling up whatever public art they encountered, especially while intoxicated.
“Oh come on! Like we’ve never rubbed up against a statue with big jugs and a big arse?!” X user @padzer78 commented, with over 32.4K views. “Especially after a few bevvies. I groped the arse of a statue of a siren at the Museum of Art in Philadelphia after doing the ritualistic Rocky Balboa running up the steps! Great times in 2007!!”
“Not saying I approve of these guys groping our Molly Malone statue but who am I to talk when I’ve done similar myself?” they continued. “And it’s not like they damaged it or wrote graffiti on it. Just some guys having a bit of fun, albeit very immaturely. Silly but no harm done. Think Ireland is currently facing FAR WORSE problems my friend.”
Many also pointed out that people just do weird stuff with statues in general.
X user @SuprSaiyanSroka posted an image of the statue of French journalist Victor Noir, whose grave lays horizontally on a platform. One of the images shows a fashionable woman straddling Noir while wearing a miniskirt, and another image of Noir’s nose, mouth and chin rubbed black.
“And this isn’t?” they wrote in the caption of the post, which has over 428.6K views and 667 likes.
“I wonder how many people groped an unclothed mannequin in a store before,” added X user @CosmicAOD. “I used to work security and it happened more often than you think. My conclusion is that people just like to groped the naughty bits. It was both men and women.”
“How could one not anticipate this happening when the statue was made,” X user @Phillip09783336 added in the comments. “Maybe cover her up a bit next time with out the cleavage. Her tits are huge and i like tits.”
“Are you slut-shaming a statue?” X user @LouSassle716 replied.
However others really stuck to the crux of what @beyoncegarden was trying to explain: that being compelled to touch a body part, even if the part is not on a living, breathing human being, could indicate more nefarious intentions with the living, too.
“Sexualizing a statue is absurd and a blatant reflection of society’s downfall,” remarked X user @PadderAasifa in the comments. “These individuals are literally groping a statue.”
“Some try to excuse it by pointing out that women do the same to male statues, but it’s embarrassing and unacceptable regardless of who does it,” they concluded.
The Daily Dot reached out to @beyoncegarden via X DM and @tilly_cripwell via Instagram DM, for comment.
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