Barry and I were looking at maps the other day, and I remembered that I'd read about a Sheela-na-gig on a castle seven miles east of Clonmancoise. We were invited to dinner with friends in that general direction yesterday, so Barry drove Bob Farwell and me to Esker Castle in Doon on the way.
I was dressed for dinner in cute black cropped pants with a cut-out detail on the hem. I was wearing black sequined “fit-flops.” I was an idiot. Nettles, brambles, dog-roses, cow-pasture with cows, ruined castle on a hill. I’m happy to report that I didn’t break my ankle or my neck and have only a few minor scratches about my ankles and feet to remind me of my folly. Did I mention I was dressed for a nice dinner with friends?
I didn’t bring the book that described where the Sheela was, but I thought it said inside the door on the south-west corner of the structure. So, Barry, Bob, and I scrambled through the rooms and up a sloping, leaf-matted sets of stairs looking for her. The floor of the castle, in addition to being overgrown with large shooters of shrubs, was strewn with blocks of stone that have fallen from the walls. I was sure that she’d just fallen out and maybe we were walking on her. Or, worse, that someone had come and removed her for their private collection.
As we were preparing to leave, I said to Barry, “At least we gave it our best shot.” He said, “Did we? Did we really give it our best shot?” He stayed inside searching for a couple more minutes, and when he came out he looked back at the building and shouted, “There she is!” Then he quoted everyone’s favorite line from Galaxy Quest, “Never give up! Never surrender!”
And sure enough, two-thirds of the way up the wall on the outside of the south-west corner of the building was a very large and well preserved Sheela-na-gig. She’s very unusual: horizontal, her feet both pointing the same direction, one of her hands on the inside of her thigh, the other on the outside. The guide book, Sacred Ireland by Cary Meehan says, “her mouth is open as though speaking.” I can’t really see that. And, of course, the book actually did say she was on the outside of the building and not the inside as I had remembered.
There are 120 Sheela-na-gigs in Ireland. I’ve seen the one at Bunratty Castle, the one at Clonmacnoise, one that Eddie Lenihan showed us when we were here thirteen years ago, and now this one at Esker Castle. Only 116 to go!
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