In 2002, as work began on a structure roughly ten metres south of Castle Hyde in County Cork, a carved stone emerged from beneath the render. It had been built into the wall as a quoin, one of the dressed corner-stones used to strengthen a building's edges, and whoever placed it there had done so upside down. The carving in question shows the lower portion of a sheela-na-gig, a medieval stone figure type found across Ireland and Britain, typically depicting a female form with exaggerated anatomy, arms reaching down around the legs in a pose that recurs with striking consistency across hundreds of examples. Even inverted and repurposed, the pose was recognisable.

Sheela-na-gigs appear most commonly on Romanesque churches and later tower houses, though their precise meaning continues to be debated by scholars. The Castlehyde example is carved in low relief within a raised frame, suggesting it was once a deliberate and considered piece of architectural decoration rather than a casual mark. Avril Purcell, who documented the discovery, considered it probable that the stone originally came from the ruins of a nearby tower house associated with the Castle Hyde site. At some point, perhaps during a phase of building or rebuilding on the property, the carved stone was quietly folded into new construction, its significance either forgotten or simply disregarded by whoever needed a corner-stone that day.

What makes this find particularly curious is the ordinariness of its concealment. The figure was not buried or hidden with any apparent ceremony; it was plastered over and built into a wall as useful rubble. It survived because the outbuilding survived, and it was only the decision to demolish and redevelop that accidentally reversed centuries of obscurity.