‘Freak pictures’: Ireland’s art revolutionaries who were treated so badly one fled to a nunnery

They were artistic trailblazers, bringing modernism to the then deeply conservative country. But Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett faced huge hostility. Now a thrilling new show is celebrating their brilliance – and determinationTwo oils on canvas hang together, strikingly similar, in the first room of the National Gallery of Ireland’s new show. Both titled Composition, they date from 1924 and 1925. They’re cubist still lifes, with the regular, geometric patterns and contrasting col