American TikToker told off by locals for kissing Molly Malone statue

While Ireland is well known for being the country of a hundred thousand welcomes, the travel vlogger known as MaxTravels13 made a misstep in the eyes of Dubliners when he filmed himself kissing the famous bronze statue.

In a video posted to YouTube documenting his visit to Ireland, he is seen smiling as he grabs Molly Malone’s head and kisses her mouth area. When he gets down his expression quickly changes to confusion as a local says: “You’re f*cking nasty, f*cking disgusting.”

“Who?” Max replies.

“Why the f*ck are you touching her t*ts?,” the local continues.

“What’s the issue, tell me, what’s the issue?,” Max responds.

“She was a really f*cking person,” the local said, before Max asks: “Why are her t*ts gold?” referring to the worn down chest area of the statue.

“Because of tourists coming here and doing that - people like you, people like them, coming here and touching her t*ts,” the local explained, asking if he’d ‘go up to any other random person and touch their breasts?’.

As the TikToker attempts to walk away, another person interjects asking: “You’re from America? F*ck you and your f*cking stupid country, you f*cking c*nt.

“Because your country is a f*cking b*stard country that has f*cked this whole world up, is f*cking this country up and go back to where you f*cking came from, you scumbag.

“Tiocfaidh ar lá, yanks out of this f*cking country you scumbag,” they added.

Max can be seen walking away from the crowd gathered around him as he laughs to the camera: “That was f*cking crazy.”

“Anyway, moving on, we’re going to go neck more Guinnesses.”

It comes as Dublin City Council have said they will hire stewards to patrol the statue to discourage people from groping it.

It will be introduced in May on a pilot basis.

The pilot is set to begin in May and will be similar to the supervision of the Dublin Portal last year.

"For some people, this is just part of their tourist experience. For other people, it seems inappropriate, particularly where the statue is being touched and, for some people, that's quite a serious issue. And to be honest, I'm inclined to agree,” Dublin City Council Arts Officer Ray Yeates said.

"It's the mimicking of behaviour which we wouldn't approve of. So we're going to try and do this, have a conversation with the great tourists that come around here throughout the summer, and see can we affect a change in behaviour?”

Mr Yeates said hiring stewards to patrol the statue is cheaper than putting the statue out of reach to the public by making the plinth it’s perched on taller.

"I think it's probably trying to come up with a fairly straightforward approach to what's a complicated question. We don't want anybody to be touching works of art,” he said.

"The O'Connell Monument, for example, or lots of other monuments, we don't want them touched. The protective covering has been rubbed away from the bronze over the years so we will have to repaint this regularly, which is a cost.

"We have some long-term safety issues to look at here. People standing up causes it to vibrate a little bit and may be moving the statue. It's perfectly safe right now, because an engineer has looked at it.”

Dublin City Council say they don’t want to have to move the statue indoors.

"I don't want to surrender the idea that we can take care of a piece of public art, even if it is particularly accessible."

Cost of monitoring statue to be 'relatively low'

The cost of hiring people to patrol the statue will cost "a couple of thousand" euro, according to Mr Yeates, but this will be less than the six figure sum that would be required to raise the height of the plinth.

Mr Yeates said that once a tradition begins it can be hard to reverse it and "we all find it difficult to change behaviour if we've developed habits.

Dublin singer Imelda May has previously spoken out against the practice saying: “I’ve been years protesting against the groping of Mollys breasts.

“I have encouraged friends to join me when I stand there physically protesting against this with my daughter beside me.

“There are two statues of women in Dublin Two! Yes there are more generic ones but two of women we know and love,” she continued.

“Not one of a Dublin woman, not one. The only one of an actual living breathing woman being our beloved heroic freedom fighter Constance Markievicz who hailed from Sligo and the other is our darling Molly Malone.

“I’m fully aware that Molly is a fictional character from a song..or is she?! Folk songs often depicted women from real life,” she added.

Imelda then described her anger at the way the statue is objectified and constantly treated.

“Molly certainly represents real Irish women as we sing of her across the world. This working class woman who simply worked hard and died unexpectedly from fever has made us Dublin women proud since childhood and I cannot tell you the rage I feel every time I see her being molested daily.

“Yes I know she’s a statue but she stands for so much yet gets so little respect.

“Do people grope the abundant male statues?!!! No. ‘Rub his penis for luck’?! Ridiculous I hear you say. Exactly!

“Women have been objectified forever and the only statue in Dublin with breasts is basically assaulted in front of our children’s eyes daily,

“What message does that give to the next generations?”

The statue was commissioned by Jurys Hotel Group to celebrate Dublin’s first millennium in 1988 which marked 1,000 years since the Gaelic conquest of Dublin.

Designed by sculptor Jeanne Rynhart, the statue was originally positioned at the bottom of Grafton Street but it was moved to Suffolk Street in 2014 following works to make way for a new Luas line.

The practice of rubbing the statue’s chest for luck was reportedly made up by an “imaginative tour guide” and is a relatively new practice.