The 117-year mystery of Ireland's missing crown jewels – Sherlock Holmes author help, graveyard digs & inside man theory

The Irish Sun

6 days ago

ON a July morning in 1907 a messenger boy was returning a piece of jewellery to a safe in Dublin Castle.
But to his shock when he arrived, the door was already unlocked and the Irish Crown Jewels, the most precious items in the country, were missing.
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The items were stolen from their safe in the Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle
Credit: Getty Images - Getty
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A reward poster offering £1,000 for the return of the jewels, worth over €170,000 today
The Irish Crown Jewels were the ceremonial regalia of the Order of St Patrick, a chivalric order established in the 18th century for Anglo-Irish nobility.
On 6 July, 1907, just four days before
The set, which consisted of a jewel-encrusted badge and a star, would be valued at several million euros today.
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On the surface, this might sound like any other famous jewel robbery.
But, Ireland's version of Ocean's Eleven holds more twists and frankly bizarre moments than even the best Hollywood blockbuster.
It all starts with the man responsible for the safekeeping of the jewels - Arthur Vicars.
Vicars was the
Contemporaries described him as being eccentric and as having a drinking problem. However, he was well-connected within Anglo-Irish society.
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Vicars was surprisingly lax in his role as custodian of the jewels.
Historian and broadcaster, Myles Dungan, explains: "The jewels were discovered to be missing completely and utterly by accident. It wasn't that somebody said, 'We'd better go and get that badge and star for Aberdeen so that he can wear it', and then they discovered it.
"They discovered it because one of the gold collars, had been cleaned by weirs of Grafton Street, and was being brought back to be put in the safe."
'HISTORY OF SCANDALS'
Vicars would host parties in the office of arms, which were often attended by various aristocrats.
Many believed Vicars was homosexual.
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And rumours swirled that these lavish parties were actually sex parties or orgies.
Myles said: "There was a history of these kind of scandals in Dublin Castle in the 1880s. The Parliamentary Newspaper of the United Ireland had exposed the Director of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Secretary of the Post Office as homosexual.
"Then you sort of fast forward by about 25 years, and Vicars was supposed to have hosted these parties."
EASILY DRUNK
Regardless of what went on at these parties, Vicars was undoubtedly reckless in his duties.
Myles explained: "He got drunk very, very easily. I mean, a couple of glasses of port and he was anybody's.
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"The story goes that he used to keep a key to the safe on himself at all times, and that one night party-goers had taken the key, and taken the jewels out, and promenaded around his office with the jewels in sort of a drunken stupor."
He added: "There was also a claim that one of the people who was involved in these parties, a man called Lord Haddo, had just for a lark, stolen the jewels, and then replaced them the following day."
RIDICULOUS BEHAVIOUR
Vicars was so accustomed to these antics that he brushed off multiple reports of suspicious activity in the week leading up to the robbery.
The Wednesday before the robbery, an office cleaner named Mrs Farrell had arrived at 7am and discovered that the front door of the office of arms was open.
The following Saturday, she returned again to find the front door open, but this time, the strongroom was also unlocked, with the keys still left in the door.
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Both incidents were reported to Vicars, who, according to Myles, "took no notice of it at all".
"The jewels were discovered to be missing completely and utterly by accident. It wasn't that somebody said, 'We'd better go and get that badge and star for Aberdeen so that he can wear it', and then they discovered it."
Myles Dungan
Historian and broadcaster
Funnily enough, the safe containing the jewels wasn't even in the strongroom when this occurred.
Myles explained: "Regulations were introduced in the early 1900s, and the rule was that the jewels were to be deposited in the strongroom of the Office of Arms in the Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle.
"The problem was that when the Board of Works, the ancestors of the OPW, and anybody who follows the Leinster House bike saga would not be surprised by this, when they came to put the safe into the strong room, they discovered that it was too big."
Instead, the safe was left unguarded in the library of the Office of Arms.
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PSYCHICS ENLISTED
The robbery of the jewels represented a monumental scandal for both Vicars and Dublin Castle.
An investigation was quickly launched in an attempt to identify the culprit. However, like every other part of this story, it was rather absurd.
Vicars was immediately fingered as a top suspect in the case, due to his possession of the keys and his strained reputation.
Desperate to prove his innocence and recover the jewels, Vicars enlisted the help of a number of supposed psychics.
The psychics told him that the jewels were buried in a graveyard, so Vicars proceeded to dig up several graveyards fitting the description given.
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AIDED BY AUTHOER
To his disappointment, nothing was found.
The author of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle, even offered his services, as he was a distant cousin of Vicars.
Doyle, however, was not a detective; he was a doctor and proved to be utterly useless when it came to actual detective work.
Vicars would later come to blame Francis Shackleton, brother of the famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, for the robbery.
Shackleton worked under Vicars at Dublin Castle and was known for having a lavish lifestyle despite being heavily in debt.
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AN INSIDE JOB?
He was also later convicted of financial fraud in 1913, in a separate case.
Shackleton, however, had an alibi. He was out of the country the day of the robbery.
Myles, however, explains that Shackleton may still have had a role to play in the robbery, as an inside man.
He said: "The main suspect in that sense is Shackleton, and Shackleton was the inside man. The outside man was somebody who may or may not have been his lover, who was a man called Captain Gorges.
"So the assumption is that Gorges actually, because Shackleton shared a house with Vickers, had access to all the keys. And that he created or he made copies of the keys for Gorges, and that Gorges then did the actual deed, he actually stole the jewels."
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"There was also a claim that one of the people who was involved in these parties, a man called Lord Haddo, had just for a lark, stolen the jewels, and then replaced them the following day."
Myles Dungan
Despite such speculation, the investigation ultimately stalled due to a lack of credible evidence.
Some believe the case was deliberately covered up by the crown after the investigation revealed a "ring of debauchery" at work within Dublin Castle.
IT MIGHT BE ON YOUR FINGER
As for the jewels, some speculate that they are still hidden or even secretly in the possession of the royal family.
More likely, however, the jewels were broken down and sold off individually after the robbery.
Myles explains: "The supposition is that the jewels that were stolen were smuggled out of the country to the Netherlands and were broken up.
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"I mean, it's always going to be a mystery. It's always going to be susceptible to any conspiracy theory you want."
Myles Dungan
Historian and broadcaster
"It's worth saying that you know any of your readers who have a diamond engagement ring could feasibly, depending on the age of the diamond, actually be wearing a small part of the Irish Crown Jewels; I strongly suspect lots of people are."
Vicars held on in his position for some time after the robbery, refusing to take blame for the loss of the jewels.
Feeling scapegoated, he even requested a royal commission trial so he could defend his character.
Eventually, however, he was found to have been negligent and fired.
He would never fully recover from the scandal and in 1921, after returning to his home in County
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UNSOLVED MYSTERY
It's been 117 years since the jewels went missing, and experts are nowhere near close to solving the mystery.
It is likely we will never know what truly happened that day, but according to Myles, that's what makes the story so interesting.
Myles said: "I mean, it's always going to be a mystery. It's always going to be susceptible to any conspiracy theory you want."
He jokingly added: "You know what I think? I think the crown jewels were stolen by aliens. Yeah. I think they were brought to New Mexico, and I think the US government basically is hiding the crown jewels because they were stolen by aliens"
To learn more about the robbery, Myles Dungan's The Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels is available for purchase online.
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An image of The Irish Crown Jewels published by the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police after the theft was discovered.
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Myles Dungan has released a book on the robbery
Credit: Myles Dungan
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The Stealing of the Irish Crown Jewels details all the bizarre aspects of the crime
Credit: Myles Dungan