Ballynacarriga Castle (Cork)
Two pictures of the 'sheela-na-gig',
which is at a height of about ten metres.
Theories which seem to explain these rather crude "folk-carvings"
on post-Romanesque churches
(for example - as the church's accommodation to the power of talismanic stones
concerned with the fertility of women or the considerable dangers of childbirth)
do not explain why such figures appear also high up (sometimes almost out
of sight) on Irish castles,
where they seem to be vaguely apotropaic
-
though perhaps some castle-builders mounted them as totems to proclaim (or
seize) power over the the fertility of the local women...
