Margaret McNair Stokes (March 1832 – 20 September 1900) was anIrish Illustrator,antiquarian and writer.
Born in Dublin, she was the daughter of DrWilliam Stokes and his wife Mary (née Black).[1] One brother,Whitley Stokes, was a leadingCelticist, a second, SirWilliam, followed their father into medicine and was a leading surgeon. Important figures in the field of antiquities such as artist SirGeorge Petrie, lawyer and poet SirSamuel Ferguson,Edwin Wyndham-Quin, 3rd Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, and historiansJames Henthorn Todd andWilliam Reeves were frequent visitors to the Stokes family home, and this is said to have begun Margaret's interest in Irish antiquities.[1]
Her first published works were illustrations and illuminations for an 1861 edition of Ferguson's poemThe Cromlech at Howth; the title page conflated parts of the illuminations on two pages of theBook of Kells. Margaret was an informed and experienced editor, photographer and illustrator by the time she came to publish research under her own name.[2] In the 1870s she edited Dunraven'sNotes on Irish Architecture (3 volumes, 1875–1877) after the author's death in 1871. HerEarly Christian Art In Ireland (1887, 2nd edition 1911) was well regarded, and if reviewerOscar Wilde was unmoved by Stokes' prose, he praised her illustrations.[3] She produced two works on early medieval Irish saints in Europe,Six Months in the Apennines (1892) andThree Months in The Forest of France (1895). HerHigh Crosses of Ireland was incomplete at her death.
She was the first Irish woman to be elected an honorary member of theRoyal Irish Academy[4] in 1876 and of theRoyal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.
She died at her home inHowth,County Dublin in 1900.[5] Her papers are held atTrinity College Dublin, and theNational Gallery of Ireland holds a chalk portrait byWalter Osborne.
Media related toMargaret Stokes at Wikimedia Commons
