Lift Up Your Skirts! On St Sheelah's Day.

This is the Wilderness We Choose, Day 21.

Mar 19, 2023

18th March is 'Sheelah's Day', a feast & festival that seems to grow in popularity each year. This is a celebration which was first reported in Ireland in the mid 1700s and, although no longer widely marked there, it remains an important day in the Irish diaspora of Australia & Canada, particularly in Newfoundland. Indeed, there, the last big snowstorm after St Patrick’s Day is still called Sheila’s brush. With St Patrick's Day falling on 17th March this meant that festivities could be extended for an extra day, especially important during the austerity of Lent. In Finland they achieved the same thing by inventing the fictitious St Urho, whose Feast Day is on 16th March. Even Lent doesn't stop the beer flowing when there is a saint's day to be celebrated!

In his 1827, 'Britain in the Every-day Book', William Hone offers us an account of Sheelah's Day; “The day after St Patrick’s Day is ‘Sheelah’s day’. Its observers are not so anxious to determine who ‘Sheelah’ was, as they are earnest in her celebration...all agree that her ‘immortal memory’ is to be maintained by potations of whiskey. It was reported on March 20th, 1841, that a woman who appeared in court for drunkenness said she bought “two small naggin of whiskey… not wishing to break through the old custom of taking a drop on St Sheelah’s Day”.

To justify this important day it's said that Sheelah was the wife or mother of St Patrick, but many have taken instead to celebrating Sheela-na-Gig, & we have embraced that in the Little Church of Love of the World. For us, it is a day of deep belly laughs & symbolic, or even actual, 'lifting of the skirts' as an act of resistance & liberation.

Many of us will be familiar with images of Sheela-na-Gig. These are still-mysterious carvings of naked female figures displaying an exaggerated vulva. Found throughout most of Europe, but especially in Ireland, the British Isles, France, and Spain, they appear primarily on churches and cathedrals.

12th-century sheela na gig on the church at Kilpeck, Herefordshire, England.

Scholars disagree about the origin of these figures, and about their meaning. The origins of the figures we know of seem to be in the 11th and 12th centuries, with the youngest dating to the 16th. They are seen variously as a warning against female lust, as protective talismans (with the flashing of women’s genitals as a protection dating back to at least the ancient Greeks), or as a remnant of an earlier Mother Goddess religion. Their protective purpose certainly seems to be supported by their frequent positioning over doors and windows, liminal spaces which were often considered to be in need of the ‘apotropaic magic’ designed to turn away evil influences. Often the Sheelas are worn smooth by the hands of those who want to touch her as they pass by.

Even her name is mysterious, with various theories on its etymology. However, it is most often equated with a phrase meaning '‘hag’ or ‘old woman’, and so her Feast Day falling on the cusp of Spring echoes tales in other lands of the Old Woman of Spring who represents the struggle between the last days of winter and the early days of spring. You can read more about her in my piece of writing here. But, of course, Sheela means so much more than that, with many in the modern day embracing her as a figure of empowerment and rebellion against patriarchy and misogyny.

Since 2021, Project Sheela; a ‘street art project celebrating female sexuality and empowerment, and advocating for women’s rights on International Women’s Day’ (8th March), have been installing figures of Sheela, “crafted in clay with 22-carat gold-lustred labia and beautifully glazed vulvas”, at sites in Britain and Ireland significant to women’s struggle.

One of Project Sheela’s sculptures in a street in Dublin. Photograph: Project Sheela

In the chapter entitled ‘The Dirty Goddesses’ in ‘Women Who Run With the Wolves’, Clarissa Pinkola Estés tells us that,

“There is a being who lives in the wild underground of women’s natures. This creature is our sensory nature, and like any integral creature it has its seasons and its own natural and nutritive cycles...The very idea of sexuality as sacred and, more specifically, obscenity as an aspect of sacred sexuality, is vital to the wildest nature. There were Goddesses of obscenity in the ancient women’s cultures - so called for their innocent yet wily lewdness. However, language, in English at least, makes it very difficult to understand the ‘obscene goddesses’ in any way other than a vulgar one…All this denigration, yet there are remnants of stories throughout world culture that have survived various purges. These inform us that the obscene is not vulgar at all, but rather seems more like some fantastic nature creature that you dearly wish would visit you…

To laugh you have to be able to breathe…In laughter, a woman breathes fully, and when she does, she may begin to feel unsanctioned feelings…”

God forbid!

And, in the midst of that wildish sacred obscenity we find Sheela-na-Gig.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés goes on to relate a story told by her female relatives whilst the men were away fishing, and which caused them to laugh until they could hardly breathe at all. The tale recounts that General Eisenhower was visiting his troops in Rwanda; which general it was and in which country seems a bit vague, but that’s not the point of the story. We need only note that it was a serious occasion, requiring much pomp and decorum. Anyway, the governor of wherever-it-was had a notion for the native women to stand by the side of the road cheering as the general went by. But there was a problem in that the women wore no clothes, save for a necklace of beads and, occasionally, a little thong belt.

The governor spoke with the head of the tribe who was more than accommodating. He assured the governor that, if he would provide skirts and blouses for the women, he would make sure that they were worn.

On the day of the whoever-it-was general’s visit, only minutes before his arrival and with the women lining the road, it was discovered that, whilst they had embraced wearing the skirts they had disliked the blouses and were refusing to wear them. And so, there they were, skirted but bare-breasted, with no underwear at all, and waiting to welcome the important man enthusiastically.

The governor, in high dudgeon, angrily called for the head of the tribe but was assured that the women had a plan to cover their breasts as the general drove by. He was more than sure that all would be well and reassured the governor that this was so. There was no time left to argue and so the governor was forced to trust. And so we can only imagine his feelings when, as the general drove by, woman after bare-breasted woman, with much dignity and grace, lifted up her skirt and covered her breasts with it.

I am sure that in the midst of that story runs their own manifestation of the anarchic wild energy of Sheela.

As for her manifestation in our lands, Jack Roberts points out in his book, ‘Sheela-na-Gig: Sacred Celtic Images of Feminine Divinity’, that traditions relating to the Sheelas are very much of the ‘common people’ and that these were often thought of as not significant enough to record, especially as Victorian antiquarian researchers were, “gripped with near apoplexy” at the very sight of the carvings! It wasn’t until the latter part of the 19th Century that English archaeologist, Edith Guest began asking the rural people of Ireland what they thought about the carvings. It became clear then that the Sheelas were held in reverence as images of mythical or divine women, and that some were even considered to be representations of saints.

It might be assumed that to consider Sheela as a saint is a Christian attempt to explain away a much older image, but it was clear from Edith Guest’s research that folk practices related to the figures had continued relatively uninterrupted and that our modern interpretation of the word ‘saint’ is far different than that of our ancestors (see Dr Janina Ramirez’s wonderful book, ‘The Private Lives of Saints: Power, Passion, and Politics in Anglo-Saxon England’ for more on this). The Sheela figure at Dowth was considered to be a representation of St Seanchan (a dual-gender name), and another to be an image of St Kieran/Ciaran, a male saint! At Ballyvourney in County Cork and Killinaboy in County Clare, the Sheela figures are said to depict St Gobnait and Inghean Bhaoithe, also known as St Findelu, respectively.

St Findelu is not recognised by the Church and her veneration has continued entirely through the devotion of local people. As Inghean Bhaoithe, she was said to be the daughter of a druid, Boath; a name which may allude to the Mother Cow Goddess, Boand of the Boyne Valley.

At Ballyvourney, a monastic site founded by St Gobnait where she found nine white deer grazing, the Sheela-na-Gig figure is central to festivities on the saint’s Feast Day, 11th February. On this day pilgrims walk around the church sunrise visiting various holy places, including the figure of Sheela which is rubbed. The most holy relic of Gobnait is a wooden statue, which is said to be an image of the saint and was once paraded dressed in rags, much like the Eastern Slavic figure of ‘Lady Maslenitsa’, who is burned during the first week of Lent, her destruction signalling the chasing away of winter and the coming of spring. That the figure of St Gobnait is of a similarly deep significance may be evidenced in the writing of antiquarian, John Windele who recounts that it was once “attacked by the local priest on account of it leading to ‘undesirable practices’”! Thankfully, it was concealed by the O’Herilihy family, also known as ‘Gobnait’s Clergy’, until they felt safe to return it to the parish priest in the 1840s. It is now brought out on her Feast Day, when ribbons known as ‘tomas Gobnatan’, or ‘Gobnait’s measure’, are cut to length against the statue, with some rubbing for luck, and are then believed to hold curative properties for the year ahead. As an aside, St Gobnait shares many attributes with St Brigid, another spirit woman ancestor whose story connects her with the struggle between winter and spring.

There is so much to say about St Sheelas, Sheela-na-Gig, and the time and season that they share. Too much in fact! And so I will end by sharing the work of my friend, soulmaker and poet-artist Debra Hall, whose beautiful image began this piece of writing and who is deeply inspired by Sheela. You can listen to her read her 2023 poem for Sheelah’s Day here

And here is her poem from 2022;

She's at the front door flashing her genius,

riding a fox bareback like it’s a Harley Davidson.

It’s dark but I’m sure I’m not seeing things,

the fox's ear is her ‘Minnie’

topped off by a michaelmas daisy.

She's wearing a Mexican Day of the Dead headdress

Frieda Kahlo would be proud of.

She's just a wee skelp of mischief

not much bigger than a shoreline boulder

but I can smell mountain on her.

The bluebird of happiness is sitting on her shoulder

whispering who knows what sweetnesses.

She wants me to go with her.

I want to go back in to the fire,

but she is gateway, journeyer, holy and profane,

the land of the moon, champion of women and girls, feisty vulgaris Queen.

Her fox’s eyes belong to the ancestors.

She motions me to join her.

It’s the night of the blue moon,

I’ve been waiting all day for something special

how can I say no?

We travel the hedgerows and wet black roads

yellow birch leaves like a trail of confetti

magic in the moonlight

we see a badger bringing out her bedding to dry,

a heron heading home with a Salmon

dangling from its mouth.

We see a shooting star

Once in a blue moon

we weave through the night

like we’re in the Snowman cartoon!

I think I know her plan

but when we get to the graveyard gates

she keeps on.

We arrive at last well beyond the town,

the fox is panting, I'm as pale as a wake,

Sheela na gig is deep earth singing,

her headdress as immaculate

as it was at the start.

I should have known she'd bring us here,

Cairn Holy, our answer to a burial mound.

The moon has gone behind black clouds.

I look into the mouth of the mound.

It is a death mask,

the threshold of winter's depth.

Without taking another step I know where this is going.

Whatever journey I make from light to dark

or dark to light

I come back to the same place

the truth my life longs for, always

intimacy with the beloved, the ineffable,

who is our permanence.

(Debra Hall https://www.herwholenature.com)

I will end with the words of archaeologist, folklorist, & historian, Shane Lehane, who describes Sheela as a manifestation of "female cosmic agency", and says of her; "There is a body of belief amongst people who study mythology that every female figure in some shape or form represents this entity. The very fact she survives is interesting. She's always there."

Lift up your skirts!

(P.S: Some of my readers may receive an email with the title, ‘Life Up Your Skirts’, which has also ended up being the URL of this piece of writing. Sometimes we miss the most obvious typos, but I’m not sure that I mind this one too much. What a perfect ‘error’!)

References:

One resource to rule them all; bandia.net! http://www.bandia.net/sheela/index.html