Hail Sheela! The Divine Feminine Force Obscured by St. Patrick’s Day
March 18th, Sheelah’s Day, is theorized to be the original indigenous holiday that St. Patrick’s Day was made to obscure. St. Patrick’s Day has become very successful at this. Historians agree on very little about the ancient origins of Sheelah’s Day, celebrated only in certain communities of the Irish diaspora in Canada and Australia for centuries now, suppressed upon the Isle of Erin. What most folklorists can agree on and trace is that the whiskey drinking and shamrocks associated with St. Patrick’s Day were most certainly originally part of Sheelah’s Day rituals. Where the common three leaf clover ☘️ is emphasized to represent the Catholic holy trinity in St. Patrick’s Day today, the significance of three leaves is debated on its meaning in Sheelah’s Day. Four leaf clovers being lucky seem to be tied to Sheelah’s Day celebrations. 🍀 But who is Sheelah?
Sheela herself has been obscured in oppression. Often denied simply because of modern prudence, by far the most likely answer to Sheelah’s identity is the notorious Sheela Na Gig. Although these sorts of statuaries are found throughout all pre Roman Britain architecture and elsewhere across ancient European ruins, this Irish Gaelic name has been assigned to these figures in association with a goddess whose own origin story has been effectively lost. She is known distinctively, and almost exclusively, by a huge exaggerated Vulva that she pulls up into the rest of her body. Because of the placements of these figures in architecture it is apparent that these sculptural Sheela Na Gigs were both wards and blessings. I realize how my own Vulva goddesses art are effectively modern Sheela Na Gigs.
vulva robed goddesses by PJ Superior in four leaf clover formation
Bonus pictures below:
A photo I took of a badly weathered Sheela Na Gig during my honeymoon on the Isle of Iona, Scotland 🏴 2019.
Photo of the plaque at the abbey ruins describing the Sheela Na Gig
Photo of myself standing in those same ruins
It was an incredible blessing to be able to visit such an amazing place with these powerful relics.
