A plus-size blogger who was guest editing Ireland’s community Twitter account has been forced to take a break from the social media site after she was bombarded with racist abuse.
Michelle Marie, who is a plus-size blogger and model, took over the account which is run by a different Twitter user in Ireland each week on Monday.
Marie who is originally from Oxford in England explained she had settled in Ireland and “it has my heart”. Hours after she began curating the account, Marie was told to “return to your ancestral lands” by trolls.
She was then subjected to an onslaught of racist and sexist abuse and body shaming from Twitter users.
Marie responded by sharing an example of just one of the instances of trolling she had been subject to and saying it encouraged her to carry on doing her work.
“A few people are finding issue with me being black and running the Ireland account, so let me just address that for a minute,” Marie tweeted.
“I am not an Irish citizen or of Irish descent. Correct. But I do live in Ireland and this account is to represent all residents here. Black people can live in any country they like. We can read and write. We are educated. We can work. We can even tweet. I know, shocking.”
Many users rushed to defend Marie, offering messages of support and encouraging her to report the abuse and block the users responsible.
Marie is a plus-size model and body positive activist who runs the blog Chocolate Curves Model. She also introduced herself as a mother while tweeting on the account.
Marie shared a statement which said while she had expected “trolls, backlash and criticism” she had ended up experiencing “racism, sexism, fatophobia and homophobia to a degree I have never known.”
"I had no idea that my mere presence and a few tweets would result in an epic race row," she also wrote.
The @Ireland Twitter account has over 40,000 followers and centres around the idea that a single voice cannot represent an entire country and provides a diverse, heterogeneous range of individuals to further connect Ireland to the world.
After taking a short break from the account, Marie is now back tweeting.
Marie and Twitter did not immediately respond to request for comment.
