STylist Lola Cashman took on U2 and lost her shirt. Now, for very the first time, the Diary can unveil the portrait of her 'crucifixion', according to artist Kevin Sharkey.

Kevin's work, which is a mixture of painting and photography (above), is going up for auction to raise money towards the €400,000 legal fees she was left owing after losing a High Court appeal in 2006.

At the centre of the case were a Stetson, earrings and other items from U2's rock wardrobe which Cashman had planned to sell off at Christie's auction house in London.

The starting price for the portrait is $100,000 and Kevin plans to sell 1,000 limited-edition canvas prints at $1,000 a piece.

Kevin told us, "When you go up against somebody that big, you're not going to win. I followed the case and I remember this little woman going in and out of the Four Courts every day and the fleet of limousines arriving until the inevitable conclusion."

The artist said the initial idea to create the work had been a joke he had made in an interview when asked about the case. "I said maybe I should do a picture of Lola Cashman being crucified by the four lads from U2."

However, he changed his mind after a chance encounter with someone from the U2 camp.

"Although Lola posed for me last year, up to six months ago the painting didn't exist. Then I met someone connected to U2 who I considered an old friend. They approached me very loudly using the words 'You little s**t' to which I said 'What do you mean?' They said 'That Lola picture.' I explained to them I'm an artist and I am entitled to express myself however I feel, but I was very shocked to be addressed like that in the street. That really pissed me off and made me think the piece should be finished.

"I think she was crucified. Good art should be emotive. Lola is a lovely girl, a genuine person who just happened to be on the wrong side of the juggernaut. At the end of the day I have nothing personally against the members of U2. I have admired their work over the years and their contribution to music. It's incredible what they have done. I do think though that sometimes the elephant doesn't see the ant."

The elephant might not notice the ant singing about him either. Last month Sharkey launched another broadside at U2 when he went on The Late Late Show to perform 'I Said Nothing', a gay love song which he penned about heterosexual U2 drummer Larry Mullen. Didn't Boy George have a crush on him too?

Asked if he'd had any reaction from Mullen since, Sharkey said, "Like, do I want to come out for dinner? I don't see that happening."

As a postscript to our interview with Sharkey, in the current edition of Hotpress magazine, The Edge was asked if U2 had made a mistake taking their former stylist to court over a cowboy hat.

Said Edge, "It's a hard call because that was a point of principle for us. Had we known the way the whole case was going to go, we might have tried to short circuit that whole thing earlier on and gone about it in a slightly different way.

"But it's very hard if you firmly believe that somebody has stolen your property and is selling it at [auction]. It's very hard to swallow that and leave it alone. It stuck in the throat. But that's water under the bridge at this point."

You can view Kevin's The Crucifixion of Lola for the next four weeks at the Dame Street Gallery.