A symbol of Irish womanhood, she deserves to be celebrated again every March 18th
William Hone gives a detailed account of Sheelah’s Day celebrations in Britain in The Every-day Book, from 1827.
Patrick is fighting with his wife, now a miserable hag at war with the world. She spitefully brushes the last of the winter snow into the way of the new cycle of work It’s significant that Síle na géag, or Sheila of the brush, is one way to render Sheela-na-gig, the name for the naked old woman who appears, exposing her genitals, in medieval stone carvings. We’ll return to this. As for the Newfoundland Sheila’s brush, sealing fleets would refuse to go back out on the ice until this storm had passed; fishermen continue to do so.
But elderly women also had experience of the world and were custodians of inherited knowledge, playing significant roles in rites of passage in the human life cycle and the cycle of the year. They acted as midwives, corpse washers and professional mourners; they advised on herbalism and vernacular medicine; and they were central to events such as the pattern day. In this respect Sheelah, as the old woman, is strongly resonant of the important Irish folk figure known as the Cailleach.
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