Muireann O’Connell has won praise for speaking out against public harassment and “casual sexual assault”.
The TV presenter has prompted women and men across to the country to share their own experiences, after she recalled being inappropriately touched by a stranger while working on a photoshoot.
In a post shared on Instagram, the Limerick native revealed she was shooting for a magazine when “a complete stranger came up and pinched [her] arse”.
Picture: Brian McEvoy
Muireann admitted she froze when the incident occurred, and later felt like “a complete idiot for not running after him”.
The Ireland AM star wrote: “I’m not in anyway traumatised by someone pinching my arse. When the right person does it, deeelightful! It was the response to it that got me. Be quiet, say nothing.”
“Everyone who was there was the exact same. They all said ‘did that actually happen?’ They were LOVELY and we moved on, cause I wanted to move on. But it’s weird, right… that powerlessness.
“Something I think has happened to a lot of us but we don’t say anything…. I still don’t know what I’d do if it happened again but I’d like to think I’d at least roar at the f***er. I just wanted to say it out loud so we could perhaps all realise it’s ok to ROAR at the f***er.”
After opening up about the incident, the Ireland AM star was inundated with messages from people sharing their own experiences of public harassment.
Muireann shared some of the shocking stories on the latest episode of her podcast And Another Thing with Emma Doran, which was titled ‘casual sexual assault and other things’.
After reading out some of the stories, she said: “We have to do something. Make a fuss, tell everyone. If you can’t call it out, tell someone about it.”
“Don’t let anyone ever say that you’re hysterical, that you’re making a big deal out of nothing, that you can’t take a joke. That’s not true. We do not have to be okay with what people are doing to us.”
Muireann also discussed public harassment in a segment on Ireland AM this morning, where she was joined by Aoife Grace Moore and Louise Crowley to discuss the rising issue.
They encouraged viewers to be “outraged” by public harassment, and to speak out if they witness it while out and about.
