Ecce Homo 2

In Ecce Homo 2, a scourged Christ with a UFF motif carved on his chest is shown on a red-blood Belfast apocalyptic street. Frank Corr, my next door neighbour, was brutally murdered by the UFF who sometimes carved inscriptions onto their victims flesh. In the background, Cavehill Mountain creates a sense of impending doom. Ian Paisley once described the Northern Ireland conflict as one between the Lamb of God and the Whore of Babylon. A roaring Ian Paisley garbed with an Orange Order sash dominates the composition as he holds a Bible and a grotesquely smiling figurine of himself with the Red Hand of Ulster on its head. Paisley was renowned for yelling his slogan “Ulster Says No!” A Rocky-type figure holds a St. Veronica/Holy Shroud of Turin image while an ET figure points his radiant finger at a Shankill Butcher skeletal figure holding a bloodied cleaver above Christ’s head. Irish simian figures are depicted on the left and the right of the composition. In the 1860s, Irishmen increasingly were represented, especially after the rise of the Fenian Movement, as apelike monsters menacing law, order, and British middle-class values. The Irish are depicted as being monstrous, inhuman and heartless in 19th century periodicals. Belfast street murals of the Virgin Mary and a terrifying death-like figure clutches a Union Jack are also depicted. Other figures include a Chaplinesque Lambeg drummer, Laurel and Hardy, Vincent van Gogh, and Wizard of Oz characters (symbols of innocent victimhood), Superman (a symbol for the heroic dead), the Lone Ranger (a symbol for law and order), the Blues Brothers (symbols of the two ancient brotherhoods in Ireland), a member of an Orange Order band playing a flute, an intimidating gunman, and several mournful women. Some are heroes, some are victims - all walk on the red-blood Belfast apocalyptic street of death.