A mural of Greta Thunberg has been defaced in Dublin, less 24 hours after it was unveiled.
The piece depicts the teenage climate activist delivering part of a speech at a UN climate action summit.
Her face was spray-painted over with the words 'Slut X George Soros Slut'.
Artist Emma Blake told The Hard Shoulder she wanted to bring people's attention back towards climate change.
"I thought now would be a good time as, for the last year, all of the focus has been on the pandemic.
"So to try and refocus people's attention and the news on to climate change.
"Even though we're still in the pandemic now, we're going to be through the pandemic and then we're going to have the huge issue of climate change to face".
A woman taking a picture of graffiti which is defacing a mural of Greta Thunberg in Dublin city centre. Picture by: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ieEmma said while some other pieces she has painted were commissioned, this was something she wanted to do for herself.
"This piece was just something that I had wanted to paint myself since I heard her speech.
"It's a mixture between passion projects and pieces that get commissioned by different companies."
She said she was working on the Thunberg mural "for about three days.
"That was the painting of it - so I would have spent a bit of time before that designing the piece".
On the defacing, she said it is coming from a very small - but loud - minority.
"It's a bit disheartening but you're always going to get people like this.
"You're always going to get conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers, pandemic deniers.
"They're a small minority, but they're a very loud small minority.
"The thing is we only have to look at what they wrote on the wall about an 18-year-old girl, to see the type of misogynist creeps that they are.
"I'm not going to let it phase me - and the thing is they can deface murals all they want, they can deface murals of Greta Thunberg: it's not going to make climate change any less real, it's not going to make the issue go away"
Emma added that she will be fixing the artwork as soon as she can.
"It is a bit disheartening to spend three days painting something and then for them to come along and destroy it like that.
"I'll go and fix it up when I get a chance".
