In 1876 the Academy elected its second Irish honorary female member—the archaeologist Margaret Stokes, sister of the philologist Whitley Stokes MRIA. Stokes was the first woman honorary member to contribute papers to RIA meetings and subsequently to the Academy’s Transactions. She was not, however, the first woman to be published by the Academy—that honour fell to Louisa Beaufort in 1827, and on an antiquarian theme. The Beaufort males were prominent members of the RIA (Louisa’s brother Francis was the creator of the Beaufort wind force scale), so that connection may explain this early appearance by a woman in the journal.