Person:Margaret Stokes (8)

Margaret M’Nair STOKES was born 1832 and died 1900. Margaret was born mar1832 at Dublin and died 20sep1900 at Howth (Dictionary of National Biography). In 1861 Margaret M. Stokes (b. 1832 Ireland) visited her sister Mary A. Cowan (b. 1835) in Glasgow (census). Margaret Stokes(1832-1900) also followed her father's interest in culture and archaelogy. She published a number of books, still often consulted, on topics such as "Early Christian Architecture in Ireland".

Nat. Dic. Of Biography: Stokes, Margaret M'Nair (1832-1900), archaeologist, eldest daughter of William Stokes MD (1804-1878), and Mary, daughter of John Black of Glasgow, was born at York Street, Dublin, in March 1832. She was one of a family of distinguished Irish scholars: her grandfather was Whitley Stokes (1763-1845)], physician and supporter of the United Irishmen and author of an English-Irish dictionary. One brother, also, Whitley Stokes (1830-1909) was a philologist; another brother was William Stokes the surgeon. As a young woman, she met the archaeologists and antiquaries James Henthorn Todd, George Petrie, William Reeves, Sir Samuel Ferguson, and Edwin R. W. Quin, third earl of Dunraven, who were her father's friends, and from whom she early derived the taste for archaeological investigation that was so influential on her future work. Her aptitude in this direction was encouraged by her father, with whom, in 1867, she visited the Aran Islands together with George Petre and the earl of Dunraven. But while her taste for research was thus precociously developed, it was not until she was over fifty, when both her parents had died, that her real services to Celtic art and archaeology were made possible.Stokes's first important work was the chance outcome of her friendship with and admiration for Sir Samuel Ferguson (feelings which were warmly reciprocated). She illustrated and illuminated Ferguson's poem ‘The Cromlech on Howth’ with initial letters from examples in the Book of Kells. These were so generally admired that an illustrated edition of the poem was published in 1861. Shortly after its publication, Sir Frederic Burton wrote of Stokes's work: ‘The initial letters are exquisite, and form in themselves quite a manual of Scoto-Celtic ornamentation’. Her knowledge of Celtic art led to her undertaking the editorship and illustration of the earl of Dunraven's Notes on Irish Architecture, which was published between 1875 and 1877. Dunraven, who died before he could complete his projected work, left a substantial bequest to meet the expenses of the publication of her edition of his Notes.Between 1871 and 1895 Stokes edited two books of Irish iconography and wrote Early Christian Architecture in Ireland (1878) and Notes on the Cross of Cong (1895). She also wrote and illustrated two books tracing the travels of early Irish missionaries to Italy and France. In old age she travelled long distances and took enormous care to photograph and transcribe inscriptions; her methods were of particular value in her final book, The High Crosses of Ireland (1898), where she made careful rubbings of each panel and, in order to get clear photographs of the crosses, waited through the day until the sun was at precisely the right angle to reveal the detail of the carvings.Stokes was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and the Antiquarian Society of Scotland. She died unmarried at her home, Caraig Breace, Howth, co. Dublin, on 20 September 1900. When she died she was considered to be in the forefront of the Gaelic revival in its interest in Irish antiquities and early Irish history. Her obituary notice in the Dublin Daily Express said that she ‘displayed the truest of patriotism, that namely, which puts the land of one's birth and nationality in the forefront, and allows no consideration to override its best interests’.C. L. Falkiner, rev. Marie-Louise Legg Sources Daily Express [Dublin] (22 Sept 1900) · The Times (24 Sept 1900) · The Athenaeum (29 Sept 1900), 417-18 · M. C. Ferguson, Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his day, 2 vols. (1896) · Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 5th ser., 10 (1900), vii-viii [preface] · J. Sheehy, The re-discovery of Ireland's past: the Celtic revival, 1830-1930 (1980) · CGPLA Ire. <javascript:;> (1900) Archives Hove Central Library, letters to Lady Wolseley Likenesses W. F. Osborne, chalk, conté and pencil drawing, 1895, NG Ire. <javascript:;> [see illus.] Wealth at death £7757 0s. 5d.: administration, 17 Nov 1900, CGPLA Ire. · £1257 11s. 6d. (in England): Irish administration with will sealed in England, 13 Dec 1900, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

1.   General Register Office for Scotland. 1861 Scotland Census. (Edinburgh).