Life
1832-1900 [Margaret M’Nair Stokes; frew. Miss Stokes]; Irish archaeologist;
dg. William Stokes; The Cromlech on Howth (1861) is an illuminated edition
of Ferguson’s poem; author of Early Christian Art In Ireland
(London 1887; Dublin edn. 1911); ed. and illustrated Dunraven’s Notes
on Irish Architecture, 1875-77; her High Crosses of Ireland
(1898) published unfinished at her death; MRIA and mbr. of Royal Society
of Antiquaries of Ireland; papers held in TCD. CAB ODNB JMC
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Commentary
Oscar Wilde, review of Early Christian Art, in Pall Mall
Gazette (17 Dec. 1887): ‘The want of a good series of popular
handbooks on Irish art has long been felt, the works of Sir William Wilde,
Petrie, and others being somewhat too elaborate for the ordinary student;
so we are glad to notice the appearance, under the auspices of the Committee
of the Council on Education, of Miss Margaret Stokes’s useful little
volume on the early Christian art of her country. There is, of course,
nothing particular original in Miss Stokes’s book, nor can she said
to be an very attractive or pleasing writer, but it is unfair to look
for original[ity] in primers, and the charm of the illustrations fully
atones for the somewhat heavy and pedantic character of the style. [//...
&c.]. See Wilde About Wilde Newsletter, ed. Margaret McCaffrey,
No.17 (16 Oct. 1994), pp.15-16.
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References
Irish
Literature, ed. Justin McCarthy (Washington: University
of America 1904); 1832-1900; dg. Dr. William Stokes; Early Christian Architecture
in Ireland; ed. Christian Inscriptions in the Irish Language; illuminated
ed. of Samuel Ferguson’s The Cromlech on Howth;
contrib., drawings to Earl of Dunraven’s Notes on Irish Archaeology;
unfinished book on High Crosses of Ireland; JMC selects ‘The
Northmen in Ireland’ form Early Christian Architecture, from
Early Christian Ireland, ‘When the group of humble dwellings which
formed the monasteries and schools of Ireland is seen at the foot of the
lofty tower whose masonry rarely seems to correspond in date with the
buildings that surround it, and which does not, as elsewhere, seem a component
and accessory part of the whole pile that formed the feudal abbey, we
cannot but feel that some new condition in the history of the Irish Church
must have arisen to account for the apparition of these bold and lofty
structures. ... In the beginning of the ninth century a new state of things
was ushered in, and a change took place in the hitherto unmolested condition
of the Church. Ireland became the battlefield of the first struggle between
paganism and Christianity in Western Europe; and the result of the effort
then made in defence of her faith is marked in the ecclesiastical architecture
of the country by the apparently simultaneous erection of a number of
lofty towers, rising in strength of “defence and faithfulness of
watch” before the doorways of those churches most liable to be attacked.
For seven centuries Christianity had steadily advanced in Western Europe.
At first silent and unseen, we feel how wondrously it grew, until, in
the reign of Charlemagne, it became an instrument in the hands of one
whose mission was to strengthen his borders against the heathen, and to
establish a Christian monarchy. [In the ensuing paragraphs, she attributes
the impetus of the Viking invasion to the pressure exerted by the Carolingian
order in Northern Europe following the invasion of Saxony in 772 AD];
gives extract on ‘Northmen in Ireland’ from Early Christian
Architecture.
Library of Herbert Bell, Belfast, holds Early Christian Art in Ireland (London 1887), another edn. (Dublin 1911); Three Months in The Forest of France (London 1895).
Art Readings for 1880 (Alexandra College Literary Soc.), Nos. 1-5 [23 up to 34pp. each]; also Readings on Archaeology and Art (1883), 71pp., full leather [Hyland 219; 1995].
Belfast Public Library holds Early Christian Art in Ireland (1887).
University of Ulster Library, Morris Collection, holds Six Months in the Apennines ... in search of the vestiges of Irish saints in France (1892) 313p; Three Months in the Forests of France ... in search of the vestiges of Irish saints in France (1895) 291p.
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Notes
Portrait, Margaret Stokes by Walter Osborne, chalk NGI; see Anne Crookshank,
Irish Portraits Exhibition, Ulster Mus. 1965, & LIBRARY ARTI.
‘The provenance of the Church of St Michael de le Pole’, in Dublin Historical Record, 12, 1 (Feb. 1951), pp.2-13, contains adverse remarks on the antiquarianism of Miss Stokes regarding her grouping of St Kevin’s of Glendalough with towers bonded to churches in design, a view supported by her inclusion of a sketch by Bèranger in Early Christian Architecture in Ireland; in fact as P J O’Reilly has pointed out the ‘church’ was a schoolhouse added by a certain Jones in 1707; likewise in her edition of Dunraven’s Notes on Irish Architecture, she placed St Michael de la Pole’s among that group; Little considers that the conditions governing her term ‘joined’ in the list in the latter work are unsure (p.3); Little ascribes Bèranger’s drawing to about the year 1778 on the basis of evidence in his note appended to the undated sketch in the RIA collection, to the effect that he had mislaid it when he ought have published it, and that the church was directly afterwards demolished. [&c.]
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