The ‘female Saint Patrick’: what history went wrong

(CNN) – On forgotten walls of rural churches or crumbling castles all over Ireland, the little figures squat unseen.

Lost in gray masonry, obscured by ivy or moss, stone carvings from Sheela-na-gig can be difficult to see in the wild – but these medieval creations are in no way holding back.

Typically bald naked women, with sagging breasts and wide-spread legs to show exaggerated vulvas, Sheela post performances seem strangely out of place at first in the primitive environment of a Christian church.

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

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

This is the story of Sheelah – who she was, why she was forgotten when St. Patrick was not, and what traces of her have been left behind.

‘She’s always there’

Irish mythology is populated with many female figures. Stories of warrior queens, gods, king makers and holy witch have been 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 a folk manifestation of what we call feminine cosmic agency, says Shane Lehane, an archaeologist, folklorist and historian at CSN College of Further Education in Cork who has sparked interest in Sheelah in recent years.

Consider her the husband’s consort, that great mythological tradition of the king and the goddess. She represents the country. ‘

While Sheela post-performances are medieval, and the figure of Sheelah first appears in newspapers and documentaries around the 17th century, tracing its history back to what is believed to be its ancient Celtic beginnings is an almost impossible task.

“There is a strong belief among people who study mythology that every female figure represents this entity in some form or another,” said Lehane. The mere fact that she survives is interesting. She’s always there. ‘

‘That great human concern’

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

Since they have often been moved from their original location and placed in new buildings, “dating them is quite difficult, but the consensus is that they date back to between the 12th and 15th or 16th centuries,” said Matt Seaver, assistant. keeper at the National Museum of Ireland. The museum has one Sheela on display at the Dublin Archeology Museum, while six more are on loan for regional exhibitions.

There are two competing interpretations of Sheelas, Seaver explains. The older view is that they “promote chaste living, a taboo on sexuality in the Middle Ages. The other theory that has been developed, mainly since the 1930s, sees them as symbols of fertility.”

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

He states that Sheela-na-performances “celebrate the woman who has custody of birth and death. Sheelah is an icon of that great human concern ”.

Embrace the witch

The Hill of Tara in County Meath is the ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland, a place of ceremony and burial that has been in use for over 5,000 years. Tour buses travel north from Dublin to visit Tara and nearby Newgrange, a Stone Age tomb.

Tara’s Lia Fáil, a phallus-like standing stone, has a powerful history, Lehane explains. ‘If you were to become king, you would sit on top of the Lia Fáil, symbolically paired with the land. If you were the right king, the Lia Fáil would scream. ‘

There are many examples in Celtic mythology of what are called sovereignty goddesses – female deities who confer royal powers through copulation.

When a king falls out of line, the goddess representing the land turns into a withered old woman, similar to the Sheela-na gig known as the Cailleach. “In order for the new king to come, he must embrace this dangerous witch,” says Lehane, “and she turns back into this beautiful, abundant, kind figure.”

The Cailleach is found wherever the land is barren and treacherous, and the weather is brutal. She gave her name to a megalithic tomb, sea rocks and mountainous outcrops. You can come face to face with the Cailleach at Ceann na Caillí (Hag’s Head) at the Cliffs of Moher and the passage tomb atop Slieve Gullion mountain known locally as Calliagh Beara’s House.

‘Ireland’s first story’

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

“The one thing that few people agree on is that there was someone called Patrick who wrote what became Ireland’s first story,” said Tim Campbell, director of the Saint Patrick Center in Downpatrick, County Down. “Ireland’s history literally starts with him.”

Patrick refers to a 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 on display at the National Museum of Ireland that bear witness to this. They belong to two failed kings who have been ritually killed and their nipples cut off so that no one can pledge allegiance.

Patrick’s legacy as a Christian missionary and bishop “was woven into the later legends of early medieval Ireland,” Campbell says, and the mythical Patrick is said to include the older legends as well.

‘Embrace chaos’

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

When Christianity emerged, the legend of Patrick took over the cult of Lugh. And by his side was his consort, Sheelah – who was 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 – March 16-18 – falls just before the spring equinox. The license to romp and ignore the restrictions of Lent is the Irish version of Carnival.

“You were expected to go wild, throw caution to the wind, embrace chaos because that’s the nature of carnival,” said Lehane. “It’s a very important Irish tradition to recognize.”

Christian influence restrained the festival’s debauchery and Sheelah’s Day – recorded as widely celebrated by the Irish and Irish diaspora in the 18th and 19th centuries – fell by the wayside. But Patrick was not left without 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, thanks to the impressive promotional efforts of the Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy, are said to be buried under the same rock in Downpatrick, a sacred site to this day.

“During the Middle Ages, people claimed to be a place of pilgrimage. If you could have the three most important Irish saints all buried in one place, you would have won the lottery,” laughs Lehane.

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

Irish still celebrate this spring festival by weaving St. Brigid’s crosses, made of rush, to place over doorways and windows to protect the house from damage.

Sacred sources

Saint Patrick, as well as Brigid, are associated with Ireland’s sacred springs, of which there are thousands. These natural resources, reserved for healing purposes, can be found “in practically every parish,” says Lehane.

Women repaired to sacred springs for relief from gynecological problems, to pray for the protection of their virginity, or to promote fertility. And while Patrick is the well’s most famous patron, “most of the wells are dedicated to female figures,” says Lehane.

Today, the few surviving Sheela-na performances can often be found near sacred wells, while wells usually also feature a rag tree, on which visitors have attached their tokens and their prayers.

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

The springs also offered feminine refuge and healing in a sometimes hostile landscape.

Sheelah, the goddess of the earth, lives on in these quiet parts of the Irish countryside, where the water pours down and the wind blows the grassy hills and the ribbons in the rag trees.

In Irish mythology, the witch is withered, but she is also timeless. She will outlive us all.