A Belfast mural depicting the Tory leadership fight has been updated to acknowledge Liz Truss’s victory.
The boxing-themed artwork gained international attention when it appeared in the city’s Cathedral Quarter last month.
Painted by artist Ciaran Gallagher, the Hill Street mural depicting Ms Truss and Rishi Sunak as opponents in the ring went up as the candidates travelled to the city for the Northern Ireland leg of the hustings.
Commissioned by publican Willie Jack, who owns nearby pubs such as the Duke of York and Harp Bar, the mural has now been reworked to show a triumphant Ms Truss and defeated Mr Sunak.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is depicted as a referee raising the new Conservative leader’s arm in the air while Boris Johnson is also painted as a referee, giving bloody-nosed former chancellor Mr Sunak the knock-down count.
The redesign took two weeks to paint so needed the men behind the project to take a punt on the outcome.
“After pictures of our Rishi and Truss mural travelled right around the world over the last few weeks, we thought it would be a bit of fun for Belfast to ‘call’ the outcome of the contest early,” said Mr Jack.
Mr Gallagher said he is delighted the way the latest mural turned out.
“Hopefully it gets the same attention it got the first time,” he said.
“Because it was such a viral hit, myself and Willie Jack decided to continue with the theme of boxing and tried to call it based on what we thought was more likely to be the outcome at the time, so was a bit of a gamble.”
Later on Monday, the mural was updated further when a speech bubble was inserted above Larry the Cat, suggesting that Downing Street’s resident feline would favour Ms Truss reappointing Julian Smith as Northern Ireland Secretary.
