By Bernie Bell.

We recorded, and are watching, a series called ‘Ulster in Focus’, the first of which featured Seamus Heaney roaming round the islands of Lough Erne

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0027p9h

I very much like his writing, so thought I’d probably appreciate his musings about the Lough.

On Boa Island, he encountered an ancient two-faced statue.  It’s in the churchyard, but I’d say it has little to do with The Church.  If at all, it might be very early Christian but I’d say it’s more probably a significant stone from the far-past, re-used.

To us, today ‘two-faced’ has negative connotations of duplicity, but a two-headed God-figure has more to do with different ways of seeing…looking back – looking about us – assessing – looking ahead – different perspectives.

This particular head has a hollow in the top, between the two faces, in which water had collected – often would collect, in Ireland.  Water – a basic of life and a vehicle for scrying.

For me, watching this programme and considering its content connects particularly with this time of year – the time between Halloween and the shortest day.  A shifting time and a time to shift with, to stir ourselves, maybe change in some ways – have more than one way of viewing life.

And so, I Googled……. ‘Ancient two-faced stone  Boa Island  Lough Erne’ and I read….

https://www.irelands-hidden-gems.com/boa-island.html

I would dearly like to visit  Boa Island and encounter that stone in actuality. Due to general decrepitude, that isn’t going to happen but – you don’t have to be there,  to be there.

A rough approximation of one face of the Boa Island Stone.