The Coolaghmore sheela-na-gig, now held at Rothe House in Kilkenny city, is said to have been discovered in a local holy well, only to be deliberately buried in Coolaghmore graveyard sometime in the early nineteenth century, apparently to get it out of sight. It came to light again during clearance work at the graveyard, which also contains the remains of a medieval church, and was eventually removed to Rothe House for safekeeping. The figure's journey from well to grave to museum cabinet encapsulates much of the ambivalence that has always surrounded sheela-na-gigs, the carved stone figures of women displaying exaggerated genitalia that appear on medieval Irish churches and other structures, their exact purpose still debated by scholars.

The carving itself is described in some detail by researcher Barbara Freitag, whose 2004 study remains a key reference for the subject. The figure is carved in the round rather than as a flat relief, which is relatively unusual. The head is earless and shaped like an inverted pear, with ovoid eyes, a wedge nose, and a slit mouth; Freitag notes the facial expression as calm. The body is thin-necked with round shoulders, no breasts, and faintly incised ribs. The right hand touches the vulva, which is rendered as a vertical line ending in a notably deep hole, while the left hand, conspicuously larger than the right, may be holding an object resting on the thigh. The leg position is particularly striking: the left leg is almost straight with the foot turned inwards, and the right leg is tightly bent at the knee with the heel directed towards the pudenda. Freitag compares this unusual pose to the sheela-na-gig at Egremont in Cumbria, suggesting connections across a wider medieval world than the figure's quiet Kilkenny graveyard might imply.

The figure is now on display at Rothe House in Kilkenny, a well-preserved sixteenth-century merchant's house that also operates as a museum and the headquarters of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society. The sheela itself is a small thing to have had such an eventful history, passed between a holy well, a deliberate burial, and an accidental rediscovery before anyone thought to write any of it down properly.