The ‘female Saint Patrick’: what history has gone wrong

(CNN) – The little figurines crouch unseen on forgotten walls of rural churches or crumbling castles across Ireland.

Lost in gray stonework, obscured by ivy or moss, the stone engravings of Sheela-na-gig can be difficult to find in nature – but these medieval creations are by no means clever.

Plain bald naked females, with drooping breasts and legs widely spread to display exaggerated vulva, Sheela-after performances initially seem peculiar from its place in the primary environment of a Christian church.

However, these envoys from an ancient past teach us a great deal about Irish and Northern European history and about the pagan roots of the worldwide festival now known as St. Patrick’s Day.

While in modern times it is a one-day celebration, it was once a three-day carnival that concluded on March 18 – Sheelah’s Day.

This is the story of Sheelah – who she was, why she was forgotten when St. Patrick was not there and what traces of her remain.

“She’s always there”

Irish mythology is populated with many female figures. Stories of warrior queens, deities, kingmakers and sacred heels were passed down from generation to generation.

However, an oral folk tradition means that names, characters and meanings change over time – and are subject to the interpretive whims of changing societies.

“Sheelah is one popular manifestation of what we call the female cosmic agency,” says Shane Lehane, an archaeologist, folklorist and historian at Cork’s CSN College of Further Education, who has been instrumental in reviving interest in Sheelah over the past few years.

“Think of her as the male of the male, the great mythological tradition of the king and the goddess. She represents the country.”

While Sheela-na-gigs is medieval, and the figure of Sheelah first appeared in newspaper and documentary reports in the 17th century, it is an almost impossible task to trace her history back to what she believes was ancient Celtic origins. .

“There is a degree of belief among people studying mythology that every female figure in some form represents this entity,” says Lehane. “The fact that she survives is interesting. She’s always there.”

‘That great human concern’

There are Sheela-to-gig carvings in Northern Europe – one of the best examples is at Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire, England – but there are 115 listed nationally in Ireland, more than anywhere else in the world.

Since they have often been moved from their original locations and placed in new buildings, “it is quite difficult to date it, but the consensus is that it dates between the 12th and 15th or 16th centuries,” says Matt Seaver, assistant guard at the National Museum of Ireland. The museum has one Sheela in its archaeological museum in Dublin, while another six are on loan at local exhibitions.

There are two main competing interpretations of Sheelas, Seaver explains. The older view is that they promote ‘chaste life’, a taboo on sexuality in the Middle Ages. The other theory, developed especially since the 1930s, sees it as a symbol of fertility. ‘

Lehane, one of these revisionists, tells CNN Travel that, “Sheelah has long been the subject of a strong misogyny perspective. They are seen as symbols of evil, symbols of lust, symbols of eroticism.”

He claims that Sheela-na-gigs’ celebrates the female woman who oversees birth and death. Sheelah is an icon of great human concern. ‘

Embrace the hag

The Hill of Tara in County Meath is the old seat of Ireland’s High Kings, a place of ceremony and burial that has been in use for over 5000 years. Tour buses travel north of Dublin to visit Tara and the nearby Newgrange, a stone-era tomb.

Tia’s Lia Fáil, a phallus-like stone, has a powerful history, Lehane explains. “If you were to become king, you would sit on top of the Lia Fáil and symbolically pair with the land. If you were the real king, the Lia Fáil would shout.”

There are many examples in Celtic mythology of sovereign goddesses – female gods who bestow royal powers through composition.

When a king falls outside the line, the goddess representing the land changes into a withered old woman, similar to the Sheela-na-gig, known as the Cailleach. “For the new king to come along, he must embrace this dangerous hook,” says Lehane, “and she reforms again into this beautiful, abundant, friendly figure.”

The Cailleach is found where land is barren and treacherous and again unforgiving. She gave her name to a megalithic tomb, rocks on seas and mountainous mountains. You can come face to face with the Cailleach at the Ceann to Caillí (Hag’s Head) at the Cliffs of Moher and the gangway atop the Slieve Gullion mountain known locally as Calliagh Beara’s House.

‘The first story of Ireland’

Saint Patrick, the historical figure, was a former slave traded from Roman Britain to Ireland in the fifth century. Exclusively among the Irish saints, he wrote his own story, in two Latin works “Confessio” and “Epistola”.

“The thing that very few people disagree on is that there was someone named Patrick and he wrote what became the first story of Ireland,” says Tim Campbell, director of the Saint Patrick Center in Downpatrick, County Down. “The history of Ireland literally begins with him.”

Patrick refers to more earthly Celtic tradition when he writes that he refuses to show submission to another man by sucking his nipples. There are two preserved Iron Age bodies in the National Museum of Ireland that testify to this. They belong to two failed kings who have been ritually killed and their nipples cut off so that no one can promise marriage.

Patrick’s legacy as a Christian missionary and bishop ‘was woven into the later legends of early medieval Ireland’, says Campbell, and the mythical Patrick would also incorporate the older legends.

‘Covers chaos’

The god Lugh is the one most associated with kingship in Ireland, says Lehane. “He represents the perfect man.”

When Christianity came together, the legend of Patrick took over the cult of Lugh. And by his side was his companion, Sheelah – now called Patrick’s wife.

Many countries have pre-Christian spring festivals and Ireland is no different. The three-day celebration of Patrick and Sheelah – from 16 to 18 March – falls just before the spring equinox. The license to reject and disregard the austerity of the fasting period is the version of Carnival of Ireland.

“You were expected to go wild, to be careful of the wind, to embrace chaos, because that’s the nature of Carnival,” says Lehane. “It’s a very important Irish tradition to recognize.”

Christian influence tamed the debauchery of the festival and Sheelah’s Day – which was widely celebrated by the Irish and Irish diaspora in the 18th and 19th centuries – fell by the wayside. But Patrick did not leave a female companion.

Three saints, one grave

Patrick may be the poster boy, but Ireland has two other patron saints – Saint Brigid and Saint Colmcille. All three are claimed to have been buried under the same rock in Downpatrick, a sacred site to this day, thanks to the impressive promotional efforts of Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy.

“During the medieval period, everywhere it was claimed to be a place of pilgrimage. If you could have the three great Irish saints buried in one place, you would win the lottery,” laughs Lehane.

The Christian Saint Brigid shares many characteristics of the pre-Christian goddess Brigid and the feast of the saint – February 1 – was originally the pagan festival of Imbolc, which was the first day of spring.

Irish people still celebrate this spring festival through the intersections of St. Brigid, made of rush, to weave to put over doors and windows to protect the house from damage.

Holy wells

Saint Patrick, and also Brigid, is associated with the sacred wells of Ireland, of which there are thousands. These natural fountains, reserved for healing purposes, are “found in virtually every congregation,” says Lehane.

Women would recover in sacred wells for the relief of gynecological problems, to pray for the protection of their virginity, or to promote fertility. And although Patrick is the most famous patron of the wells, ‘the majority of the wells are dedicated to female figures’, says Lehane.

Today, the single surviving Sheela-after performances can often be found near sacred wells, while wells usually also contain a cloth tree on which visitors have attached their signs and prayers.

“The Sheela-after performances represent a point between life and death,” says Lehane. During the many centuries when pregnancy was a fine balance between a fertile new beginning or a young life that was cut short, women turned to Sheelah – a birth icon – in their time of need.

The wells also offered a feminine space of sanctuary and healing in an sometimes hostile landscape.

Sheelah, the earth goddess, lives on in these quiet pockets of rural Ireland, where water flows beneath and the wind bubbles the grass hills and ribbons in the rags.

In Irish mythology, the hook is withered, but she is also ageless. She will survive us all.