Punishment

"you were flaxen-haired,

undernourished, and your

tar-black face was beautiful.

My poor scapegoat,"

"It's a poem about standing by as the IRA tar and feather these young women in Ulster. But it's also about standing by as the British torture people in barracks and interrogation centres in Belfast. About standing between those two forms of affront." as Heaney has said.

Seamus Heaney compares this local ritual during the Troubles with those evidenced by the unearthing of "bog bodies" from the 1500's understood by archaeologists to belong to ritual killings. The bog body in the painting is based on a published photo of one of these. A report and photo in the Belfast Telegraph of the tarring and feathering of a young girl for dating a British soldier formed the basis of the painting. The painting was done in Gauche and ink.

The poem is from North Home