diff --git a/girepository/girmodule-private.h b/girepository/girmodule-private.h
index c3cb9df2a..fba781d5e 100644
--- a/girepository/girmodule-private.h
+++ b/girepository/girmodule-private.h
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ struct _GIIrModule
   char  *version;
   char  *shared_library;
   char  *c_prefix;
-  GList *dependencies;
+  GList *dependencies; /* (owned) */
   GList *entries;
 
   /* All modules that are included directly or indirectly */
diff --git a/girepository/girmodule.c b/girepository/girmodule.c
index 549a984ae..c3309cdc2 100644
--- a/girepository/girmodule.c
+++ b/girepository/girmodule.c
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ gi_ir_module_free (GIIrModule *module)
     gi_ir_node_free ((GIIrNode *)e->data);
 
   g_list_free (module->entries);
-  /* Don't free dependencies, we inherit that from the parser */
+  g_clear_list (&module->dependencies, g_free);
 
   g_list_free (module->include_modules);
 
diff --git a/girepository/girparser.c b/girepository/girparser.c
index 2ff9009a0..de60eef1f 100644
--- a/girepository/girparser.c
+++ b/girepository/girparser.c
@@ -3194,7 +3194,9 @@ start_element_handler (GMarkupParseContext  *context,
               ctx->include_modules = NULL;
 
               ctx->modules = g_list_append (ctx->modules, ctx->current_module);
-              ctx->current_module->dependencies = ctx->dependencies;
+              g_clear_list (&ctx->current_module->dependencies, g_free);
+              ctx->current_module->dependencies =
+                g_list_copy_deep (ctx->dependencies, (GCopyFunc) g_strdup, NULL);
 
               state_switch (ctx, STATE_NAMESPACE);
               goto out;
@@ -3824,6 +3826,7 @@ gi_ir_parser_parse_string (GIIrParser   *parser,
     }
 
   g_clear_slist (&ctx.node_stack, NULL);
+  g_clear_list (&ctx.dependencies, g_free);
   g_markup_parse_context_free (context);
 
   if (ctx.modules)