Just a note ... Shelanagria sounds like an anglicization of a name
that would originally have taken a form like:
- - - Sile (anglicized to Sheila or other form) na gria
However, there's nothing on Google for "Sile na gria" .... and I'm not
sure there is such a word as gria in Irish.
- - - * * *
Terms that comes up a lot when you search for anything involving "Sile
na" or "Sheila na" are:
*
sile na gig, sheelagh na gig, sheila na gig -- stone figures found on
old buildings, on churches and castles, carvings so ancient I'm not
sure anyone really knows their origin, or the origin of the word
itself:
"The figures, approached through a Romanesque doorway, date from the
ninth or 10th century. They include a saintly-looking abbot or abbess
and a distinctly unsaintly sile-na-gig - a female fertility symbol -
with a wide and dirty grin."
http://www.michaelkerr.co.uk/fermanagh.html
*
Sile na gCioch -- a traditional Irish song
"The melody is eerie, woven through with the singing thread of Kate
MacLeod's fiddle. 'Sile na gCioch (Sheila)' takes the flip side with a
song about a traveler who gives a woman a dress he found on the road,
but washed out for her. If she puts it on, she'll be accepting him and
be a traveler too. The chorus tells the answer: 'chuir si uirthi e
(she put it on)'."
http://www.rambles.net/hardy_omens.html
*
Sile na gCioch -- seems it's another name for the sile na gig
"In 1978 Canon Ryan discovered on the front gable of the castle under
the newly constructed Roman arch, a Sile-na-gCioch, that is, a carved
stone female of grotesque appearance, reputedly possessing talismanic
powers"
http://clanegan.org/SpeckledBooklet/castles.htm
*
Sile na gCioch = sheela of the breasts - theory
[This website discusses various theories of the name:]
"But we've seen that so few of the sheelas actually have breasts. And
the few that do... well, their haggish breasts are really not the
most, er, prominent of their features. The other popular suggestion
has been "Sile-ina-Giob (sheela on her hunkers)." I just don't see the
word ina-giob migrating to the words na gig, in either pronunciation
or spelling, during the time period in question.
http://www.bandia.net/sheela/
= = = =
There's also a Sheila na Geira ....
"During the reign of Elizabeth I, Gilbert Pike, a former member of the
Peter Easton's pirate band, fell in love with Sheila Na Geira, an
Irish princess whom he had rescued from a Dutch warship, where she was
being held prisoner. The couple married and decided to make a new home
for themselves in the New World."
http://destination-nfld.com/common/trails/areaid.asp?AreaID=A3
= = = =
The nearest Irish word sounding like gria may be grian, Irish for sun;
there's also gra, meaning love.
There are a few dictionaries (Irish Gaelic / Gaeilge) listed here:
http://www.ceantar.org/Dicts/ |
