There exists as well argument on a source of the Sheelas. 1 perspective by James Jerman & Anthony Weir is that a sheelas were foremost carved around France and Spain in the 11th century. It at length reached Britain so Ireland in the 12th century. Their operate was the continuation of the the food and drug administration began by Jørgen Andersen. Eamonn Kelly points to a distribution of sheelas around Ireland to trend lines this theory; most entirely of the surviving around place sheelas come encountered in areas of Anglo-Norman conquest (12th century), when the areas which remained "native Irish" boast sole two or three sheelas. Anthony Weir & James Jerman argue inside Images of Lust that their locatiin on churches & ugliness by mediæval standards suggests that they were utilized to represent female lust as hideous and sinfully corrupting.

An additional theory, espoused by Joanne Mcmahon & Jack Roberts, is that the carvings are remnants of a pre-Christian fertility or Mother Goddess religion. To trend lines this claim, it point to a differences inside materials & styles of the sheelas from either either their surrounding structures, & that a few sheelas come turned in their side, to trend lines the idea that it were incorporated from former structures into early-Christian structures. There are differences between average "continental" exhibitionist numbers & Irish sheelas, including a deficiency of male numbers inside Irel& & a UK when a continental carvings come other probably to require male numbers, and a extra "contortionist" postures of continental numbers.

Such carvings come said to ward off death and evil. More grotesques like gargoyles and Hunky Punks are oft discovered in churches everthing on top Europe and it is ordinarily said that it is there to keep evil spirits away.