Sheela-na-gig, Glebe, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Ecclesiastical Sites

Sheela-na-gig, Glebe, Co. Westmeath

Above one of the windows in the north wall of a fifteenth-century church in County Westmeath, a carved stone figure sits in a posture that is impossible to misread.

She is a sheela-na-gig, a category of medieval carving found across Ireland and Britain, typically depicting a naked female figure displaying exaggerated genitalia. The figures remain genuinely mysterious; theories about their purpose range from fertility symbols to apotropaic warnings, and no consensus has settled the matter. What makes this particular example worth seeking out is the precision of the carving's survival and the strangeness of its expression, even with the lower portion of the figure now missing.

The church in question is Taghmon, a medieval structure set within a graveyard where St. Munna's Church also stands. Taghmon Castle lies roughly 150 metres to the north-west, and a motte and bailey, a form of early Norman fortification consisting of a raised earthen mound and an adjoining enclosed yard, sits about 350 metres to the south-east. The sheela-na-gig is carved on a sandstone slab and positioned over a trefoil window, though she is not thought to be in her original location, suggesting she was moved at some point during the church's history. The scholar Barbara Freitag, writing in 2004, recorded the figure in careful detail: a large head without ears, a pained expression, the mouth wide open and showing two rows of teeth, eyebrows indicated by two indentations, nostrils clearly defined. The hands grip tightly flexed knees, and the lower legs are held apart to display a large oval pudendum with a round hole at its centre. A note from 1980 recorded her position as above the more westerly window in the north wall, described then, as now, as also being of sandstone, suggesting the slab was at least placed in sympathy with the fabric of the wall around it.

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