Life
1914-92; b. Dublin; son of gov. of Mountjoy Prison; raised in Portlaoise; ed. Christian Brothers, Portlaoise and UCD (schol.; Celtic Studies, 1933); MA in Archaeology, 1934, writing his thesis on “Archaeological monuments in Counties Laois and Tipperary"’ bursary for international travel; trained for field-work with Harvard Archaeological Mission to Ireland under Hugh O’Neill Hencken; completed his PhD. at Marburg U on Von Humboldt Fellowship; m. Charlotte Lang, with whom two sons; joined National Museum of Ireland, 1939; keeper of Antiquities, 1945, succeeding Adolf R. Mahr; promoted Keeper, 1949, and Director NMI, 1976;
issued Prehistoric Ireland (1951) - though completed in 1941 - with num. ills. of megaliths prior to restoration; oversaw the completion of Christian art in ancient Ireland with Vol 2, initiated by Mahr in 1932; supervised the excavation and acquisition of num. gold hoards in Ireland and investigated long-stone cist burials; deferred from High Court decision to name the Wood Quay site of Viking Dublin a national monument; served as Pres. of Society of Antiquaries of Ireland; elected MRIA, 1941; Vice-President of RIA in 1963 and 1965; President of RIA in 1968; d. 12 May 1992; Barry Raftery, the architect, is a son.
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Works
Books
Prehistoric Ireland (Batsford 1951), 228pp., ill. [b&w]; ed. The Celts [Thomas Davis Lectures] (Mercier 1964), 83pp., contribs. to which incl. David Greene (The Celtic Languages); James J Tierney (Celts and Classical Authors); Otto-Herman Frey (Archaeology of the Continental Celts); Raftery (Archaeology of the Celts of Ireland); Myles Dillon (Celtic Religion and Celtic Society); Kenneth Jackson (Celtic Aftermath in the Islands).
Articles incl. ‘Ex Oriente [...]’, in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1965) [dismantling the theory of Coptic origins for Irish art and culture the early medieval period].
See also Christian Art in Ancient Ireland: selected objects illustrated and described. Edited on behalf of the Irish Free State By Adolf Mahr (Dublin: Government Publications Office 1932). Vol. I, pp.XXVII + 80 pls. [price 21s]; also Do., ed. Adolf R. Mahr, 2 vols. [rep. edn.] (Hacker Art Books 1976) [price $169.21].
[Note: Mahr’s book was undertaken as a complement to the Eucharistic Congress, Dublin 1932; the second volume was produced in wartime by Dr Raftery and others.] Mahr distinguishes the four main styles in early Irish art as vernacular Keltic or “Scotic”, Hiberno-Viking, Last Animal Style, and Hiberno-Romanesque. See review in Antiquity, 7:25 (Cambridge 1933), pp.113-14 - available online; accessed 18.09.2023.]
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Criticism
P. F. Wallace, ‘Joseph Raftery (1913–1992)’, in Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, cxxii (1992), 158–59; Michael Ryan, ‘Joseph Raftery’, in Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA 2009) - online; accessed 18.09.2023.]
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