Sheela na gig

A sheela na gig is a figurative carving of a naked woman displaying an exaggerated vulva. These carvings, from the Middle Ages, are architectural grotesques found throughout most of Europe on cathedrals, castles, and other buildings.

The greatest concentrations can be found in Ireland, Great Britain, France and Spain, sometimes together with male figures. Ireland has the greatest number of surviving sheela na gig carvings; Joanne McMahon and Jack Roberts cite 124 examples in Ireland and 45 examples in Britain. One of the best examples may be found in the Round Tower at Rattoo, in County Kerry, Ireland. There is a replica of the Round Tower sheela na gig in the County Museum in Tralee town. Another well-known example may be seen at Kilpeck in Herefordshire, England.

The carvings may have been used to ward off death, evil and demons. Other grotesque carvings, such as gargoyles and hunky punks, were frequently part of church decorations all over Europe. It is commonly said that their purpose was to keep evil spirits away (a practice known as apotropaic magic). They often are positioned over doors or windows, presumably to protect these openings.

Scholars disagree about the origins of the figures. James Jerman and Anthony Weir believe the sheela na gigs were first carved in France and Spain during the 11th century; the motif eventually reached Britain and then Ireland in the 12th century. Jerman and Weir's work was a continuation of research begun by Jørgen Andersen, who wrote The Witch on the Wall (1977), the first serious book on sheela na gigs. Eamonn Kelly, Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, draws attention to the distribution of sheela na gigs in Ireland to support Weir and Jerman's theory; almost all of the surviving in situ sheela na gigs are found in areas of Anglo-Norman conquest (12th century). The areas which remained governed by native Irish have few sheela na gigs. Weir and Jerman also argue their location on churches and the grotesque features of the figures, by medieval standards, suggests they represented female lust as hideous and sinfully corrupting.

Another theory, espoused by Joanne McMahon and Jack Roberts, is that the carvings are remnants of a pre-Christian fertility or mother goddess religion. They note what they claim are differences of materials and styles of some sheela na gigs from their surrounding structures, and noting some are turned on their side, to support the idea they were incorporated from previous structures into early Christian buildings.^{[citation needed]}

The name was first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1840–1844, as a local name for a carving once present on a church gable wall in Rochestown, County Tipperary, Ireland; the name also was recorded in 1840 by John O'Donovan, an official of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, referring to a figure on Kiltinan Castle, County Tipperary. Scholars disagree about the origin and meaning of the name in Ireland, as it is not directly translatable into Irish. Alternative spellings of "Sheela" may sometimes be encountered; they include Sheila, Síle and Síla. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from Irish, Síle na gcíoch, meaning "Julia of the breasts".

Jørgen Andersen writes that the name is an Irish phrase, originally either Sighle na gCíoch, meaning "the old hag of the breasts", or Síle ina Giob, meaning "Sheila (from the Irish Síle, the Irish form of the Anglo-Norman name Cecile or Cecilia) on her hunkers". Patrick S. Dinneen also gives Síle na gCíoċ, stating it is "a stone fetish representing a woman, supposed to give fertility, generally thought to have been introduced by the Normans." Other researchers have questioned these interpretations – few sheela na gigs are shown with breasts – and expressed doubt about the linguistic connection between ina Giob and na Gig. The phrase "sheela na gig" was said to be a term for a hag or old woman.

Barbara Freitag devotes a chapter to the etymology of the name in her book Sheela-Na-Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma. She documents references earlier than 1840, including a Royal Navy ship Sheela Na Gig HMS Shelanagig (1780), and an 18th-century dance called the Sheela na gig. The Irish slip jig, first published as "The Irish Pot Stick" (c.1758), appears as "Shilling a Gig" in Brysson's A Curious Collection of Favourite Tunes (1791) and "Sheela na Gigg" in Hime's 48 Original Irish Dances (c.1795). These are the oldest recorded references to the name, but do not apply to the architectural figures. The Royal Navy's records indicate the name of the ship refers to an "Irish female sprite". Freitag discovered that "gig" was a Northern English slang word for a woman's genitals. A similar word in modern Irish slang gigh (pronounced [ɟiː]) also exists, pronounced ghee and meaning vulva, further confusing the possible origin of the name.