Life
1870-1950 [Robert Alexander Stewart; common var. Macalister; occas. Stewart-Macalister;
err. MacAllister]; b. Dublin, ed. TCD, Germany, and Cambridge; served
as pioneering Dir. of Excavations for Palestine Exploration Fund, 1900-09;
Prof. Archaeology at UCD, 1909-43; organist and choirmaster at
Adelaide Rd. Church, Dublin; Studies in Irish Epigraphy (3 vols.,
1897-1907); Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times (1921); The Archaeology
of Ireland (1927, 1944); Tara: A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland
(1931), treating of Gaelic Goddess of Sovereignty; An Leabhar Gabhála
authoritatively for the Irish Texts Society, 1934-1956; Ancient Ireland
(1935), 24 pls., 18 ills, maps; The Secret Languages of Ireland
(Cambridge UP 1937), a work of synthesis covering Shelta, Ogham, Bog Latin,
Bearlagair na Saer [masons’ jargon], and which served as the source
of references to ‘sheltafocal’ and Ogham-lore in James Joyce’s
Finnegans Wake; also works on Monasterboice (1946), Tara
[q.d.], and other Irish archaeological sites; his father, author of a
geol. work on Co. Dublin (RIA 1911). IF DIW DIB DIH
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Works
Side-lights from the Mound of Gezer; a record of Excavation and Discovery
in Palestine (1st edn. 1906); Two Irish Arthurian Romances [ITS]
(London: Nutt 1908), ix, 207pp.; R. A. Stewart Macalister, MA, FSA, The
Memorial Slab of Clonmacnois, King’s County, with an appendix
on the materials for a history of monastery [Dub Univ. Press for Royal
Society Antiquarians of Ireland] (RIA 1909),158pp.; Muiredach, Abbot
of Monasterboice 890-923 AD [...] (1914); Pre-Celtic
Ireland and Celtic Ireland, IV (c.1917); Ireland in Pre-Celtic
Times (1921); The Latin and Irish Lives of Cia[r]an
(1921); Bible Handbook of Carved Ornament from Irish Monuments
of the Christian Period (Dublin: RSAI 1926); The Archaeology of
Ireland (1928); Tara, A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland (1931),
280pp.; Ancient Ireland: A Study in the Lessons of Archaeology and
History (1935), maps, ills.; The Secret Languages of Ireland (1937);
Corpus inscriptionium insularum Celticarum (1945); Monasterboice,
Co. Louth (1946), ill.
Miscellaneous, ed., Robert Downing’s History of Louth [and] ... excavations ... in Galway (1917).
Reprints, ed., Book of Uí Maine (1942); ed., Lebor Gabála Érenn, 1-5 (Vols. 1-4, 1938-41; Vol. 5, 1956); The Secret Languages of Ireland [1937] (Armagh: Craobh Rua Books 1998), 294pp.
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Criticism
Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways (1957), p.12.
Damian MacManus, Guide to Ogam (Maynooth 1991).
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Notes
Stephen Brown, Ireland in Fiction (Dublin: Maunsel 1919), gives
bio-data: Prof. of Irish Archaeology, NUI; works on Palestine, the Philistines,
Ecclesiastical vestments; Irish Epigraphy, Archaeology, &c.; Two
Irish Arthurian Romances [ITS] (London: Nutt 1908), ix, 207pp., containing
wonder tales, ‘The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog’ and ‘The
Story of Eagle Boy’; text and trans. on facing pages; quotes MacAlister’s
Introduction, ‘[t]he dreamland of gruagachs and monstrous nightmare
shapes is here as typical a creation of Irish fancy as in any of the stories
of the Finn cycle’; Eagle Boy displays ‘no small constructive
ingenuity and literary feeling’ (Do.).
Hyland (Catalogue No. 214) lists Bible Side-lights from the Mound of Gezer; a record of Excavation and Discovery in Palestine (1st edn. 1906); Ancient Ireland, A Study in the Lessons of Archaeology and History (1st edn. 1935), maps, ills.
Emerald Isle Books (Catalogue No. 95) lists RAS Macalister with H. S. Crawford, Handbook of Carved Ornament from Irish Monuments of the Christian Period (Dublin: RSAI 1926).
Belfast Central Public Library holds Ancient Ireland (1935); The Archaeology of Ireland (1928); Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times (1921); Monasterboice (1946); The Secret Languages of Ireland (1937); Tara, A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland (1931).
University of Ulster Library (Morris Collection) holds The Archaeology of Ireland (1928); Ireland in Pre-Celtic Times (Maunsel 1921); The Latin and Irish Lives of Ciavan (1921); Muiredach, Abbot of Monasterboice 890-923 a.d. ... (1914); Pre-Celtic Ireland and Celtic Ireland, IV (c.1917); Robert Downing’s History of Louth [and] ... excavations ... in Galway (1917); Tara, A Pagan Sanctuary ... (1931) 280pp.; Teamhair, Tara (1935), 7pp.
He believed Ogham to have originated in a druidic sign-language based
using five fingers developed in Cisalpine Gaul c. 500 b.c.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)