Russborough House, robbed four times

At about nine on the evening of 26 April 1974, a woman who said she was a French tourist with car trouble knocked at the staff entrance of Russborough House. The house stands near Blessington in County Wicklow and was the home of Sir Alfred Beit, a baronet and collector, and his wife, Lady Clementine. Armed, masked men followed the woman in. They tied up the Beits and the staff, and Sir Alfred was struck on the head with a pistol butt.

The raiders took 19 paintings. They included works by Vermeer, Goya, Velazquez, Rubens and Gainsborough, worth about 8 million pounds then. The Telegraph reports that the woman was Rose Dugdale, an English heiress and IRA member aged 33, and that she chose the pictures. Smithsonian Magazine reports that a ransom note demanded 500,000 pounds and the transfer of four IRA prisoners. On 4 May, Irish police found all 19 paintings, undamaged, in a rented cottage near Glandore. Dugdale was charged in 1974 at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years. She died on 18 March 2024.

In 1976 the Beits placed the house and its contents in trust, as the Alfred Beit Foundation. On the night of 20 to 21 May 1986, while they were away, thieves came again. They took paintings that included the Vermeer, a Goya, two Metsus and Gainsborough’s Madame Baccelli. The sources do not agree on the number or the value. The Associated Press, in the New York Times in 1986, counted 17 paintings worth up to 45 million dollars. The Irish Times in 2002 gave “reputable estimates” of 15. The Irish Times in 2001, the Guardian and Time gave 18. Values run from 24 million pounds to 50 million pounds, both from the Guardian in 2002.

The Irish Times reports that it is generally accepted the thieves were a Dublin gang of 13 led by Martin Cahill, known as “The General”. The sources consulted record no charge or conviction against him for Russborough. He was shot dead in Dublin on 18 August 1994, while on bail on a kidnapping charge. Famous pictures were hard to sell, and the Irish Times reports that they passed through many hands.

Recoveries came slowly. In 1990 a Metsu was found in Turkey. In 1992 the Gainsborough turned up in London. In 1993 police in Antwerp, working with Irish detectives, recovered eight works, including the Vermeer, the Goya and a second Metsu. The Irish Times says they were thought to be held as collateral in a drug deal that cost the lives of three undercover officers. Three of them were shown to the press at the National Gallery of Ireland on 29 April 1994. The Beits had given 17 paintings to the Gallery, in 1986 or 1987 depending on the account. A Rubens, Head of a Man, was found in north Dublin on 7 August 2002.

Two more robberies followed. On 26 June 2001 three men rammed the front door with a jeep and took the Gainsborough and a Bellotto, which gardai recovered in south Dublin in September 2002. On 29 September 2002 a jeep rammed a window and five paintings were taken, all of which were recovered from an attic in Clondalkin, Dublin, on 20 December 2002.

The Vermeer, Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid, is now in the National Gallery of Ireland. Two Guardi Venetian views from the 1986 raid were still missing in 2002. A 2021 blog post, says they are the last of the stolen works that have not been found. Nothing newer was found.