The Evil Eye Stone at Ireland's Kilkea Castle, the ancient apotropaic "All-Suffering Eye" motif, and the Sheela-na-Gig

An unusual stone-carved tableau in the external wall of the guard-room of Kilkea Castle, Co. Kildare, is named for its reputed function of repelling the Evil Eye. An underappreciated reality is that its components clearly sit within the Romanesque tradition of Norman corbel grotesques. As a whole, though, this medieval ensemble from the western extreme of Europe has visual overlaps with an ancient template from the Eastern Mediterranean which likewise opposes the Evil Eye. One example of this "All-Suffering Eye" template, namely a mosaic from a Roman villa in Antioch, predates the Irish composition by a millennium or more. There is a long-standing Irish belief that Sheela-na-Gig statues are similarly intended to counter the Evil Eye. Since the Sheela's open vulva has the shape of an eye, albeit one rotated through 90°, some of her anti-Eye power may derive from sympathetic magic. An epilogue explores conceptual antecedents to the Sheela-na-Gig in Anatolian Neolithic art.