Workers clearing the eastern end of the graveyard uncovered a sheela-na-gig, one of the carved stone figures found across medieval Ireland and Britain that depict a female figure explicitly displaying an exaggerated vulva. Their origin and meaning remain debated; they appear on Romanesque churches, castles, and in graveyards, and have been interpreted variously as fertility symbols, apotropaic carvings meant to ward off evil, or warnings against lust. Whatever their purpose, they are arresting objects, and this one had been lying quietly in the ground for an unknown stretch of time before it came to light.

The figure, described in detail by researcher Barbara Freitag in 2004, is carved on an irregular slab measuring 0.71 metres high and 0.35 metres wide. The head is badly damaged, with no facial features surviving, though traces of a necklace are still visible at the base of the neck. The ribs are clearly indicated. The pose is the characteristic squatting position, legs widely splayed and bent at the knees, feet turned outwards. The left arm passes behind the left leg, with fingers visible beneath the thigh; the right arm reaches down in front of the body, the hands gripping a prominently carved vulva. It is a remarkably complete description of a figure that, from the neck up, has been almost entirely lost to time. The graveyard itself occupies a site where a medieval church stood, as recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840, which gives the find some architectural and historical context, even if the precise relationship between the carving and the church is not known.

The sheela-na-gig is no longer at Clonoulty. Following its discovery, it was moved to the GPA Bolton Library in Cashel, a repository associated with the Church of Ireland cathedral complex in that town, where it is held as part of the collection. Anyone wanting to see the figure would need to make for Cashel rather than the Tipperary graveyard where it was found.