Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Sheela-na-gig
Dowth, County Meath, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Dowth
- County
- Meath
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Coordinates
- 53.70353, -6.44746
- SMR number
- ME020-019002-
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Shown on 4 historical map sheets, the earliest the 1799 "Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
Sheela-na-gig located on external face of S wall of medieval church at Dowth (ME020-019----). Described by Freitag as a ‘figure only vaguely discernible, obscured by funerary monument. Photograph published by Margaret Murray in 1934 shows a small head, biggish, almost rotund torso and both arms reaching down to sizeable round hole, indicating vulva. Guest reported in 1936 that the `prominent abdomen characteristic of this figure had been hacked off to accommodate a modern tombstone'. She also asserts that according to a sketch in private possession, at one time figure had splayed legs and hands directed towards lower abdomen’ (Freitag 2004, 131). (Guest 1936, 113; Andersen 1977, 148).
Compiled by: Caimin O'Broem
Date of revised upload: 27 January, 2017
References
Andersen, J. 1977 The Witch on the wall: medieval erotic sculpture in the British Isles. London. Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Guest, E.M. 1936 Irish sheela na gigs in 1935. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 66, 107-29.
Nearby in the register
Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.