What is recorded here

Killursagh church once held a stone sheela-na-gig, but the carving survived relocation into a coach house and now watches the porch of the modern Roman Catholic church in Cross village. Sheela-na-gig in Ballymacgibbon North is not a forgotten fragment; it is a twice-displaced marker of female presence, still standing where people pass.

Listed in the RMP (1997) as 'stone sculpture (original location)’, this record refers to a sheela-na-gig which was originally located in Killursagh church (MA121-137001-). In 1867 Wilde recorded it as a stone figure carved in relief, which was removed from Killursagh church and built into a coach house nearby (O Lochlainn 1968, 157). In 2012 new information came to light confirming that the carving consists of a sheela-na-gig, and that its present location (MA121-178----) is in the porch of the modern Roman Catholic church in Cross village. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 13 January 2015

This Sheela-na-gig is likely medieval in origin, though influenced by earlier prehistoric traditions of carved stone figures. It may have had a symbolic or ritual function, potentially linked to fertility or protective folklore.

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