Evie Hone at Manresa
Evie Hone was born into an established Anglo-Irish family which had previously included distinguished Irish artists; she was a descendant of Joseph Hone, a brother of Nathaniel Hone. At the age of eleven she became partially lame from infantile paralysis. A visit to Assisi in 1911 made a profound impression on her. In 1921, together with her friend Mainie Jellett (1897-1944), she became a pupil of the cubist painter, Albert Gleizes, who had turned increasingly to religion - a core element of Evie's life.
Evie Hone produced some seventy-four windows in the twenty-two years during which she worked in stained glass. Her reputation may rest largely on the expressive intensity of her stained glass output, but she was an artist who closely involved herself in the Irish art scene in a number of ways.
Head of Evie Hone
Head of Evie Hone by Oisín Kelly (1915 – 1981) Bronze
The Nativity
This window depicts Mary, the child Jesus, Saint Joseph and animals at the top. Underneath the shepherd in the centre are the Magi, arriving with gifts, following the guidance of the star.
The Beatitudes
The figure of the teaching Christ is central surrounded by representations of the Beatitudes as found in Matthew’s gospel.
The Last Supper
The upper part of the window shows Jesus with the Apostles at table at the institution of the Eucharist. The washing of the feet is seen at the bottom. The death of Judas is shown on the bottom right, with the pieces of silver received as reward for his betrayal of Jesus beneath.
Pentecost
The window shows the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Mary and the Apostles. The lower section depicts the ministry of the Apostles after Pentecost as they attended to the care and healing of the sick.
The Sacred Heart and Jesuit Saints
The main figure is the Sacred Heart, though, unusually, the heart is placed, not on the figure of Christ, but in the lower panel, between Saint Robert Bellarmine, in Cardinal’s red on the left, and Saint Claude de la Colombière, a promoter of devotion to the Sacred Heart, on the right. The right-hand panel portrays Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a founder of the Jesuits. He is seen kneeling at the bottom with the Jesuit Constitutions beside him with the letters AMDG (Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, To the Greater Glory of God) on its cover. The top shows La Storta, near Rome, where he had a vision of being placed with Jesus and the figure in the centre of this panel is Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. The left section shows Saint Francis Xavier in the centre, with a scene of him ministering in the East in the top left. The walking figure at the bottom is Saint Stanisław Kostka who joined the Jesuits on his seventeenth birthday, having walked from Poland to Rome to do so. The College in Rahan - the original site of the windows - was named after him.
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius of Loyola drew together companions to found Society of Jesus.
St Francis Xavier
One of the founding members of the Society of Jesus, Francis Xavier is remembered for his notable missionary energy which inspired the Europe of his time.
Saint Robert Bellarmine
Robert Bellarmine was a Jesuit theologian upon whom the rank of Cardinal was conferred. one of the outstanding theologians of his time, he contributed to the development of faith by the publication of a catechism and other theological and religious works.
Saint Stanisław Koskta
In his short life, Stanisław Kostka displayed great energy and determination. This popular Polish saint and is also the patron of Jesuit novice so his inclusion in the window formerly in the Jesuit novitiate in Rahan might be expected.
Saint Aloysius Gonzaga
Evie Hone depicts Aloysius Gonzaga in the dress of nobility. He was declared patron of young people in 1729.
Evie Hone has been described as having two great loves in her life: God and art. Of her fifty stained glass windows, some forty are in Ireland, ten in England and one in Washington D.C. The famous Eton window - an acknowledged masterpiece, of which there is a preparatory sketch in Manresa – was begun in 1949 and installed in 1952. Evie’s personal favourites were the Sermon on the Mount/Beatitudes (in Manresa) and the Ascension, which is in Kingscourt, County Cavan.
Visit the Evie Hone Room
The prayer room is normally accessible to the public from 10.00 am to 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm. It may not be available to visitors during some retreats. Enquiry to reception will establish whether it can be visited at a given time.
Evie Hone and Mainie Jellet pioneered modernist art in Ireland, their exploration of religious themes winning more acceptance for the genre than might otherwise have been found. The windows of Evie Hone display her knowledge of European religious art tradition and her modernist skill.
Manresa and Evie Hone
The windows in the Manresa Jesuit Centre of Spirituality prayer room were Evie Hone’s first independent commission, executed in 1945 and 1946. The first windows she worked on depict the Nativity and the Sacred Heart (the windows on the left and right respectively in the current arrangement) and, in 1946, the Sermon on the Mount/Beatitudes, the Last Supper and Pentecost.
The windows were made for the chapel of the Jesuit College, Rahan, Tullamore, County Offaly and, when that building was sold in 1991, they were removed and installed in the purpose-built room in Manresa in 1992.
Evie was a life-long friend of Mainie Jellet, with whom she studied painting in London and, later, in Paris under André Lhote and Albert Gleizes; she was influenced by the works of Georges Rouault among others. Over the years she became more attracted to stained glass and worked with Michael Healy at An Túr Gloine, continuing to do so until it was dissolved in 1944. Evie then set up her own studio in Marlay Grange, Rathfarnham.