Graveyard, Shanrahan, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Burial Grounds

Graveyard, Shanrahan, Co. Tipperary

The ruined church at Shanrahan contains two sheela-na-gigs built directly into its fabric, which is unusual even by Irish standards.

A sheela-na-gig is a carved stone figure, typically female and explicitly sexual in pose, found on medieval churches and castles across Ireland and Britain. Their purpose remains genuinely contested: apotropaic warning, fertility symbol, pre-Christian survival absorbed into Christian architecture, or something else entirely. Whatever their origin, finding one is notable; finding two in the same church wall, in a small valley-floor graveyard at the foot of the Knockmealdowns, is the kind of detail that tends to stop people mid-stride.

The graveyard sits on a low hillock in otherwise flat terrain, an irregularly shaped enclosure measuring roughly 109 metres north to south and 79 metres east to west. Alongside the church, the site contains what has been identified as a possible hall-house, a type of rectangular medieval stone building that served as a high-status domestic residence, typically dating from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. The presence of both a hall-house and a church within a single enclosed site suggests this was once a place of some local significance. The earliest dateable headstone, positioned to the east of the church, bears a date of 1736, though the graveyard itself is clearly much older.

The sheela-na-gigs are incorporated into the church fabric rather than displayed separately, so looking carefully at the stonework of the walls is worthwhile. The hillock setting, modest as it is, gives the site a slight elevation above the surrounding valley floor, with the Knockmealdown mountains rising to the south.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Graveyard, Shanrahan, Co. Tipperary. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement