It is a sheela-na-gig, a category of medieval carving found across Ireland and Britain in which a figure, usually female, is depicted exposing or displaying the genitalia. The Newtown example is unusually stripped back even by the standards of a form that was never exactly refined: there are no breasts, no legs, no lower body to speak of, only a head and torso with arms reaching down to pull the vulva apart.

The carving came from the church at Newtown Lower in County Tipperary, where it had presumably been set into the fabric of the building for centuries. In 1968 it was acquired by the National Museum of Ireland, removing it permanently from its original context. What survives is a roughly worked piece of stone measuring 0.36 metres high by 0.28 metres wide, with the face indicated by hollowed-out eyes, a hollow mouth, and a raised ridge for the nose. The pointed chin presses down against the chest, giving the head a compressed, almost embryonic quality. The crudeness is not necessarily a sign of carelessness; many sheela-na-gigs have this pared-down, almost schematic quality, as though the carver was working toward an idea rather than a likeness. Their precise function remains debated, with theories ranging from apotropaic charms meant to ward off evil to survivals of pre-Christian fertility imagery incorporated into Christian architecture.

Because the figure is now held by the National Museum of Ireland rather than at its original site, there is nothing to see at Newtown Lower itself. The carving exists now as a museum object, detached from the church wall that once gave it whatever meaning local people attached to it.