The evidence seems to point to a more Christian period. All of them appear in/on churches in GB, some are on castles in Ireland.

Yes, they really do look pagan and they really do cry out to be refered to as 'Mother Goddess' figures, it's just there isn't even any folklore attached to them!

In Ireland some are still rubbed as part of patterns on holy days. When on a church they are often over a doorway.

The odd thing is the lack of documentation on them. There isn't even any great Christian Anti-Sheela propoganda! That is the really odd part.

I think there is one reference to some bishop saying that all Sheelas should be burned, which is odd considering they're all stone. Were there once loads of wooden ones? Could have been.

This is perhaps the only possible reason for the late date of the stone Sheelas. Was the of carving Sheelas from stone not practiced until the Romanesque stone carvers came to Ireland. Did they just adopt an image that was prevelent in Ireland and use it to indicate sin, as the other exhibitionist figures did?

Until someone pulls a definite wooden Sheela out of a bog and dendro dates it we will never know.

But the use of grotesque sexually explicit carvings by the church to warn of the consequences of the sin of lust is well documented.

If there was a reasoned, impartial tallying up of the evidence today then the Goddess theories would lose big time.

I also object to anyone refering to "The" Goddess. There was no "The" Goddess :-)