This a petition with the aim of getting The Shelbourne hotel to put back in their rightful place the iconic statues, which have stood outside the hotel for over a century. 

The  statues removed from outside the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin were not slave girls but are instead “princesses”. 

Kyle Leyden, who lectures at the University of London, has told RTÉ Radio One’s Drivetime programme that the original catalogue the work was chosen from did not refer to the statues as slaves. 

“In that printed catalogue, it appears that the man who originally created and sculpted the statues does not actually refer to them as slaves. He did not intend them to be read as slaves,” Leyden said. 

“It was clear that the Egyptian statue at least was not in any way to be read as a slave. It was wearing a royal Egyptian headdress, which would indicate it was a princess,”

The women depicted in the statues are dressed in expensive, high-quality materials. In contrast, sculptures of slaves usually saw women depicted naked. 

“The Shelbourne statue is clothed in expensive striped silk and wears a golden headband,” he said. Referring to the statues as part of an “Egyptomania” that swept Europe in the early 19th century, he said it was unlikely the women in the statues were wearing manacles. 

“They are simply bangles around the ankles of the statues. In addition to that, all four of the statues wear the same bangle around their ankles,” he added.

It is clear that these statues have nothing whatsoever to do with slavery and as such the grounds for their removal is null and void.