of his own country. His gifts in this latter direction led to his selection by Dr. Reichel as his deputy in the chair of ecclesiastical history in the university of Dublin; and in 1883, on the termination of his principal's period of office, Stokes was appointed his successor. The appointment was brilliantly justified, and it soon appeared that in selecting a professor the university had produced an historian. The fruit of his labours was quickly manifest in his 'Ireland and the Celtic Church,' published in 1886, which achieved an immediate success. This was followed in 1888 by his 'Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church,' in which the history of Irish Christianity was traced through a further stage.
Stokes intended to continue the history of the Irish church down to modern times, but his scheme was interrupted by the laborious task of producing for the 'Expositor's Bible' his 'Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles' (1891). This work, which ranks among the most valuable contributions to the series in which it appeared, displays in a marked manner Stokes's literary talent. He succeeded in interesting lay people in the historical criticism of the New Testament, and in conveying to them the latest results of such criticism in a popular form.
From 1880 onwards Stokes's indefatigable industry had enabled him to add largely, and in many directions, to the more important productions of his pen above enumerated. In 1887 he published, as the second volume of a 'Sketch of Universal History,' a 'Sketch of Mediaeval History.' In 1891 he published an edition of Bishop Pococke's 'Tour in Ireland' [see Pococke, Richard]. He was an occasional contributor on subjects connected with theology and ecclesiastical history to the 'Contemporary Review.' Among his many articles in this periodical, that on 'Alexander Knox and the Oxford Movement' is perhaps the most important (August 1887); and he produced numerous papers before the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland, and the Royal Irish Academy. In 1887 he was appointed librarian of St. Patrick's Library, in Dublin, a position peculiarly congenial to his tastes. In spite of these varied labours he never neglected his clerical duties. In189ohewas temporarily disabled by a partial stroke of paralysis, from the effects of which he never fully recovered. In 1896 he delivered a series of lectures entitled 'How to write a Parochial History,' in which he strove to imbue his divinity students with something of his own enthusiasm for antiquarian learning; and in the following year he commenced an instructive course of lectures on 'Great Irish Churchmen of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,' which he did not live to complete; they were edited, under the title 'Some Worthies of the Irish Church' (London, 1900), after his death by the Rev. H. J. Lawlor, who succeeded to his professorial chair. On 24 March 1898 Stokes succumbed, after a brief struggle, to an attack of pneumonia. He was buried at Dean's Grange, co. Dublin. Stokes was twice married: first, to Fanny, daughter of Thomas Pusey of Surbiton, Surrey, and secondly to Katherine, daughter of Henry J. Dudgeon of the Priory, Stillorgan, co. Dublin.
In addition to his works above enumerated Stokes published: 'The Work of the Laity of the Church of Ireland,' 1869; various articles in Smith's 'Dictionary of Christian Biography,' 1880-7; and, in conjunction with the Rev. C. H. Wright, a translation of 'The Writings of St. Patrick' (Dublin, 1887, 8vo).
It is upon Stokes's two volumes on the early history of the church in Ireland that his fame must mainly rest. He had a peculiar talent for finding out the interesting things in history; and, while his knowledge of his subject was as minute as it was wide, he knew how to discard the unessential.
[Preface to the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, pp. v-viii; Athenæum, 2 April 1898; private information.]
STOKES, MARGARET M'NAIR (1832–1900), Irish archæologist, eldest daughter of William Stokes, M.D. [q. v.], and Mary, daughter of John Black of Glasgow, was born at York Street, Dublin, in March 1832. Sir William Stokes [q. v. Suppl.] was her brother. At her father's house she was thrown in early girlhood into daily intimacy with James Henthorn Todd [q. v.], George Petrie [q. v.], William Reeves (1815–1892) [q. v.], Sir Samuel Ferguson [q. v.], Edwin R. W. Quin, third earl of Dunraven [q. v.], and others of her father's antiquarian friends, from whom she early derived the taste for archæological investigation which became the absorbing passion of her later years. Her aptitude in this direction was stimulated also by the careful training of her father, from whom she received precisely such a training as might best fit her for the work she was afterwards to accomplish. But while her taste for research was thus precociously developed, it was not until she had passed middle age that her real services to Celtic art and archaeology were rendered, her early life being fully occupied with home duties. Thus it was not until death had removed those to whom she ministered that
