Sotheby’s sale stirs memories of the unsolved theft of Irish Crown Jewels
Order of St Patrick ‘breast star’ linked to 112-year-old crime that rocked Irish society, writes Liam Collins
THE sale of a ‘breast star’ of the Order of St Patrick belonging to the 3rd Lord Oranmore and Browne at Sotheby’s in London last week for €32,343 cast a long shadow back to Saturday, July 6, 1907, when it was discovered that the insignia of the ‘illustrious order’ — known as the Irish Crown Jewels — had been stolen.
The theft uncovered a sexually charged atmosphere at Dublin Castle — the centre of British power in Ireland — where titled ‘gentlemen’ dressed up in elaborate regalia for state occasions and secretly for orgies of drink and sex.
No one knows for sure when the theft took place, who was responsible or what happened to the elaborate gold and jewelled regalia said to be worth about €3m in today’s money.
But three days after the theft the Irish Independent reported, intriguingly, that “the safe had been opened by means of its own key”.
On the eve of a royal visit to Dublin, the incident left King Edward VII furious at having to cancel the investiture of the 2nd Baron Castletown into the Order, and when police from the DMP, the RIC and detectives from London began investigating the case there were claims and counterclaims and allegations of a cover-up.
Although much of the investigation was suppressed, what emerged left the ancient Order of St Patrick in disarray. Queen Elizabeth of England still remains the titular ‘sovereign’ of the defunct order while the last knight, the Duke of Gloucester, who was invested by royal appointment in 1936, died in 1974.
But the ‘breast star’ of the Illustrious Order of St Patrick, which was valued at between €8,000 and €10,000, sold for more than three times that — and four times the value of the last one to be sold (€8,000) some years ago.
At the centre of the drama in 1907 was the Ulster King of Arms, Sir Arthur Vicars of Kilmorna House in Co Kerry, who was often on duty in Dublin Castle at night and drunk in his office. He was found one morning after a party semi-conscious with the Crown Jewels around his neck. Another member of the circle was Richard Gorges, later described by nationalist MP Laurence Ginnell as “a reckless bully, a murderer a bugger and a sod”, and Vicars’ second-in-command and friend Francis Shackleton, “one of Gorges’ chums in the castle and a participant in the debauchery”.
Ginnell, claiming a cover-up, told the House of Commons of “criminal debauchery and sodomy being committed in the castle by officials, army officers and a couple of nondescripts of such position that their conviction and exposure would have led to an upheaval from which the chief secretary shrank”.
Lord Haddo, the son of the then lord lieutenant was said to have been a participant in scandalous parties in the castle tower.
There was also an element of farce about the whole transaction. Back at the beginning of the 20th century, the collection was known as the State Jewels. It was composed of gold, enamel and 294 jewels taken from the crown jewels of Queen Charlotte, and a jewel, said to come from a Mogul emperor, belonging to her husband George III, who established the order in 1783 to consist of the King or Queen of England (and Ireland at the time) and 22 knights.
The collection was originally housed in the Birmingham Tower in Dublin Castle before being moved in 1903 to the Bedford Tower, near the Ship Street entrance to the castle where a new strongroom had been built. But just like the famous printer in Leinster House, when the safe was brought to the new location it wouldn’t fit through the door and Sir Arthur Vicars stored it in his office.
The regalia was last worn by the Lord Lieutenant the Earl of Errol at a ceremony to celebrate St Patrick’s Day.
The treasures were last seen in the safe on June 16, 1907, when Vicars showed them to the librarian of the Duke of Northumberland, John Hodgson.
But some days before the visit of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra to open the International Exhibition in the RDS showgrounds, the safe was found unlocked and the hoard missing.
The ‘Amazing Robbery’, as characterised by the Irish
Independent, made world headlines. Missing were the Diamond Star of St Patrick encircled by four greater and four lesser rays of silver, and The Collar of the Order which was a collection of gold roses and harps strung together in a chain with an imperial jewelled crown at its centre with a harp of gold hanging from it.
Five collars of Knights Companions inscribed with the names of the Marquess of Ormond, and Lords Howth, Cork, Enniskillen and Mayo also disappeared, as did a valuable collection of jewels belonging to the late Mrs Vicars, which contained, among other things, a 300-year-old ring which once belonged to the Marquess of Huntley. This was beneficially owned by the Cork Herald, Pierce Gun O’Mahony.
Although it was clearly an insider job, Vicars and his side-kick Shackleton were exonerated, and despite the efforts of police forces in Ireland and Britain no trace of the jewellery was ever found.
In the years that followed dissident unionists were blamed for stealing the treasures to embarrass the British government over its plans for Home Rule.
The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was alleged to have got its hands on them and smuggled them to America to raise funds for ‘the cause’. Journalist and republican Bulmer Hobson was adamant that Shackleton and Gorges had smuggled the treasure to Amsterdam and pawned it. There was also a theory that they “never left the castle” and may still be hidden there.
In the wake of the theft and scandal, Sir Arthur Vicars and his entire staff were sacked, and he retired to Kilmorna House, near Listowel in Co Kerry. He had to sell his library for ready cash. Shackleton was later jailed for theft and fraud, and when he was released from jail in 1915 he changed his name and disappeared.
Sir Arthur Vicars, who at the age of 53 married Gertrude Wright, was attacked at his home by the IRA on several occasions but fended them off. Then on April 14, 1921, his house was set alight and he was murdered as he fled.
There, it seemed, the mystery of the ‘State Jewels’ would rest. Then on September 22, 1976, Mr P Connolly of the High Court ordered publication of a secret clause to Vicars’ 1921 will.
“I might have had more to dispose of,” it said, “had it not been for the outrageous way in which I was treated by the Irish government over the loss of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907 backed up by the late King Edward VII whom I had always loyally and faithfully served — when I was made a scapegoat to save other departments responsible and when they shielded the real culprit and thief Francis R Shackleton, brother of the Explorer (Sir Ernest) who didn’t reach the South Pole. My whole life and work was ruined by this cruel misfortune and by the wicked and blackguardly acts of the Irish government. I had sunk my whole fortune in my profession and was left without any means but for the magnanimous conduct of my dear brother George Gun Mahony. I am unconscious of having done anyone wrong and my very misfortune arose from my being unsuspicious and trusting to a one time friend and official of my former office. I had hoped to leave a legacy to my dear little dog Ronnie had he not been taken from me this year — well we shall meet in the next world.”
In 1977 it was revealed that William T Cosgrave, President of the Free State, had been sent a memorandum in 1927 from an assistant secretary in his department, Michael McDumpy, stating that “the castle jewels are for sale and they could be got for £2,000 to £3,000”.
Cosgrave attached a note to the file saying he “would not like them to be used as a means of reviving the Order or to pass into any hands other than those of the State”.
The last excitement over the jewels arose in 1983 when gardai were tipped-off that they had been buried in the Dublin Mountains in an area near the Blue Light pub. Extensive searches revealed no trace of them.
The general conclusion remains that Shackleton and Gorges were behind the theft of the jewels and tragically they were broken up or melted down for gold, silver and diamond.
But then again, maybe not.
‘The safe had been opened by means of its own key’