Muireann O'Connell shares her experience of a stranger inappropriately touching her

The Ireland AM presenter's experience led to an outpour of similar stories from her followers.

Muireann O’Connell has opened up about an experience she had while working on a photoshoot where a stranger inappropriately pinched her, prompting an influx of messages from people with similar stories.

The Ireland AM star initially posted about the scenario on her Instagram stories but after realising it had happened to so many of her followers, she decided to share more in a post to her profile.

Explaining what happened, she said: “While we were getting this shot for VIP magazine, a complete stranger came up and pinched my arse. We all assumed it was someone we knew, it was a joke but…. Nope.” 

Muireann said when she realised what had just occurred, she felt like “a complete idiot for not running after him and… doing I don’t know what”.

“Now I know that this is nothing in comparison to what happens to people without their consent everyday. I also know that worse happened to most of us as young ones when we were simply walking through a packed pub or nightclub but I just assumed that being older, I’d have the cop on to do… something. But my training kicked in and it was to do anything to avoid a fuss.”

The Limerick native said it was the response to it that got her: "Be quiet, say nothing.” 

She continued: “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*cker. 

"I just wanted to say it out loud so we could perhaps all realise it’s OK to ROAR at the f*cker."

After sharing what happened to her, the presenter asked her followers to share their own ‘frozen’ experiences which prompted an influx of responses from people with similar stories.

“I know a lot of people are [going to] say that they would punch him, slap him….whatever but the messages on stories are the same as mine. Freeze. Don’t make a fuss and it just sits in your head, the disappointment in your own response while he’ll never think about it again," she said.

Reflecting on the many messages she received, Muireann said there were hundreds.

“There are so, so many messages. From people of all sexes and genders…it’s f*cking awful and infuriating and properly upsetting."

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