Dublin City Council has announced the introduction of stewards to prevent inappropriate handling of the Molly Malone statue, clarifying that the initiative is not an April Fool’s joke, reports The Mirror.
Similar to the stewards deployed at the Dublin Portal following a surge in anti-social behavior last year, these attendants will oversee the statue and discourage inappropriate interactions.
The tradition of rubbing the statue’s chest for luck is believed to have originated in 2012, allegedly started by a playful tour guide. Since then, both tourists and locals have frequently engaged in the practice, leading to visible wear and discoloration, particularly around the neckline, reports The Mirror.
Dublin City Council Arts Officer Ray Yeates expressed concerns about both the damage to the statue and potential safety risks associated with people climbing onto its plinth.
Speaking to RTÉ, Yeates explained that stewards would initially be deployed during the daytime.
“In the long term, we need to consider the safety implications of people leaning on the statue, as this could affect its foundations,” he said, reports The Mirror.
“The repeated rubbing is wearing away the patination, the protective layer of the bronze, which we have to restore every year. This initiative is about educating the public, as many people don’t realize the impact of their actions. Because the plinth is low and others are doing it, it becomes a continuous cycle,” reports The Mirror.
Yeates also urged tour guides to discourage the practice and confirmed that a protective coating will be applied to the statue’s chest to help preserve it.
Separately, Mr Yates told Newstalk, he said: “I’m very aware that this has caused a certain amount of disquiet and upset to members of the public. I’ve been actually dealing with various inquiries about that statue for about a year now. It was necessary for us to kind of study this, because, as always, we’re afraid there might be unintended consequences of any actions that you take. We were just at the statue today, along with engineers from the city about getting up and down off the plinth the whole time. Although it’s a very low plinth, I don’t see much of an issue there, but it’s causing a little play in the statue, a little vibration in it, and we are going to start studying where it’s fixed to make sure it’s entirely safe,” reports The Mirror.
He continued: “It is entirely safe – and the engineer signed off on that – but the long-term concept, getting up on the plinth and pushing at the statue could be a safety issue – that’s the first thing. The second part of this is that, as an arts officer, I don’t want anyone to touch a public work of art, appropriately or not appropriately. I don’t want people to touch the O’Connell monument or to scratch the Spire – nobody wants that kind of touching to go on. Now, because the plinth is quite low and it’s in such a popular area of town, you know, people are taking advantage of the opportunity. People feel it’s been touched inappropriately, then it’s a female figure, and that’s causing some disquiet,” reports The Mirror.
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