The ancient Indo-European Irish culture deeply manifested its hybrid social origins; that is, in Ireland, the migrating Indo-Europeans assimilated into indigenous tribes which were both matrilineal and patrilineal. Because they could inherit in these societies, Irish women were economically viable. In both human social structure and divine pantheons, the ancient Irish exhibited a legacy of powerful female figures. Some of them may be reflected in the Irish Sheela na gigs, although neither oral traditions nor texts accompany the Sheela na gig figures to tell us who or what they are meant to represent. Only the Sheelas themselves exist, as images of women that are usually set into the architecture of churches and castles. Their meaning has been examined by scholars for 150 years. We believe that the Sheela na gigs reflect ancient Irish goddesses and heroines, although their form is even more ancient, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras. In this article, we examine the iconography surrounding the Sheelas and compare it with descriptions of female figures in ancient Irish myth and epic.(1)

The Sheelas: Overview and Antecedents

The Irish Sheela na gig--who has been called whore, devil, witch, and goddess--boldly displays her supernatural genitals. Her compelling presence once caused a museum curator to comment, "Sheela na gigs hinted at feelings and emotions not normally evoked by academic study" (Roberts 1993, 2). Although the figure is conceptual, what is she a concept of? The debate about the origins and meaning of the Sheela na gig, which continues to this day, began in the nineteenth century when Irish antiquarians began cataloguing these mysterious female images carved in stone on their medieval buildings. The first recorded reference to a Sheela was by John O'Donovan in his Ordnance Survey Letters of 1840.(2) Possible translations of her name are "old hag of the breasts" or "old hag on her hunkers" (Kelly 1996, 5). Sile means "hag" or "spiritual woman"; the term also relates to the words "fairy" or "sprite" (Roberts 1993, 8). Gig can be interpreted as gCioch or Giob, "breasts" or "buttocks." The earliest form of the name dates to 1781. Oddly enough, there was a British Navy ship called Sile na Guig, translated as "Irish Female Sprite" (O'Connor 1991, 15).

Several conflicting theories prevail as to the origins and functions of the Sheela na gig. Does she embody the power of the Irish goddesses, first conjured on indigenous Irish soil? Or did she originate on the European continent as a decorative figure on Romanesque churches, depicting the sin of lust? It is generally agreed that most Sheelas were created between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries as architectural motifs. Sheela-like exhibitionist figures are found in western France, northern Spain, the British Isles, and Ireland. It is impossible to say how many Sheelas once existed or were destroyed by a later, more puritanical age in Ireland; a fair estimate would be approximately 100 and in the British Isles, approximately thirty-five. In France and Spain, where the exhibitionist figures are smaller and hidden...