Sheela Na Gig - Etymology

Etymology

The name was first published in the Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 1840-44, as a local name for a carving once present on a church gable wall in Rochestown, County Tipperary, Ireland; the name was also recorded in 1840 by John O'Donovan, an official of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, referring to a figure on at Kiltinan Castle, County Tipperary. There is disagreement about the origin and meaning of the name, as the name is not directly translatable into Irish. Alternative spellings of "Sheela" may sometimes be encountered; they include Sheila, Síle and Síla. The name "Seán-na-Gig" was coined by Jack Roberts for the ithyphallic male counterpart of the Sheela which is fairly rare in Ireland but is much more common on the continent.

Jørgen Andersen writes that the name is an Irish phrase, originally either Sighle na gCíoch, meaning "the old hag of the breasts", or Síle ina Giob, meaning "Sheila (from the Irish Síle the Irish form of the Anglo-Norman name Cecile or Cecilia) on her hunkers". Dinneen also gives Síle na gCíoċ, stating it is "a stone fetish representing a woman, supposed to give fertility, gnly thought to have been introduced by the Normans". Other researchers have questioned these interpretations; few sheela na gigs are shown with breasts, and there are doubts about the linguistic connection between ina Giob and na Gig. The phrase "sheela na gig" was also said to be a term for a hag or old woman.

Barbara Freitag devotes a chapter to the etymology of the name in her book Sheela-Na-Gigs: Unravelling an Enigma, and comes up with some earlier references than 1840, including a ship called Sheela Na Gig in the Royal Navy and a dance called the Sheela na gig from the 18th century. An Irish slip jig, first published as The Irish Pot Stick (c.1758), appears as Shilling a Gig in Brysson's A Curious Collection of Favourite Tunes (1791) and Sheela na Gigg in Hime's 48 Original Irish Dances (c.1795). These are the oldest recorded references to the name, but do not apply to the figures. The name is explained in the Royal Navy's records as an "Irish female sprite". Freitag also discovered that "gig" was a Northern English slang word for a woman's genitals. A similar word in modern Irish slang "Gigh" (pronounced ) also exists, further confusing the possible origin of the name.

Weir and Jerman use the name sheela, but only as it had entered popular usage; they also call figures of both sexes "exhibitionist". They cite Andersen's second chapter as a good discussion of the name. Andersen states in that chapter that there is no evidence that "sheela na gig" was ever a popular name for the figures and that it came out of a period (i.e. the mid-19th century) "where popular understanding of the characteristics of a sheela were vague and people were wary of its apparent rudeness". An earlier reference to the dubious nature of the name is made by HC Lawlor in Man Vol.31, Jan 1931 (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) where he says "The term "sheela-na-gig" has no etymological meaning and is an absurd name". Andersen, Weir and Jerman and Freitag all dismiss the name as being modern and somewhat arbitrary.

The oldest recorded name for one of the figures is "The Idol" which relates to the Binstead figure on the Isle of Wight. This name was mentioned in 1781 in The History of the Isle of Wight by R. Worsley and mentioned again in 1795 by J. Albin in A New, Correct and Much-improved History of the Isle of Wight (Andersen page 11). The name "The Idol" was also applied to a now lost figure in Lusk, Ireland and was recorded as being in use around 1783.