Word: sheela
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...confusion has been blamed squarely on the Catholic Church, but a country usually gets the religion that suits it. The Irish attitude to sex goes back a long way. Vivian Mercier, in his indispensable book The Irish Comic Tradition, talks of ubiquitous stone carvings depicting a creature called the Sheela-na-gig, half-whore and half-crone, with enormous sexual parts and withered breasts. This would be the same enchantress of ancient legend who, having seduced her victim, turns successively into scalding water, a beast that eats the poor man's head and a dwarf that fastens his hair...