The Crown Jewels of Ireland were heavily jewelled insignia of the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick

Order of St. Patrick

The Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick is a British order of chivalry associated with Ireland. The Order was created in 1783 by George III. The regular creation of knights of Saint Patrick lasted until 1921, when most of Ireland became independent as the Irish Free State...

. They were worn by the sovereign at the installation of knights of that order, the Irish equivalent of the English Order of the Garter

Order of the Garter

The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry, or knighthood, existing in England. The order is dedicated to the image and arms of St...

 and the Scottish Order of the Thistle

Order of the Thistle

The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...

. Their theft

Theft

In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...

 from Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle off Dame Street, Dublin, Ireland, was until 1922 the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland, and is now a major Irish government complex. Most of it dates from the 18th century, though a castle has stood on the site since the days of King John, the first Lord of Ireland...

 in 1907 remains unsolved.

History

King George III

George III of the United Kingdom

George III was King of Great Britain and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of these two countries on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death...

 instituted the Order of St Patrick in 1783. Among the insignia of a knight were a star and a badge; in the royal set of the insignia these were composed of rubies

Ruby

A ruby is a pink to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...

, emerald

Emerald

Emerald is a variety of the mineral beryl colored green by trace amounts of chromium and sometimes vanadium. Beryl has a hardness of 7.5–8 on the 10 point Mohs scale of mineral hardness...

s and Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s.

Theft

In 1903, the jewels were transferred to a safe, which was to be placed in the newly constructed strongroom. The new safe was too large for the doorway to the strongroom, and Arthur Vicars

Arthur Vicars

Sir Arthur Vicars, KCVO was an English-born genealogist and heraldic expert who spent his adult life in Ireland. He was appointed Ulster King of Arms in 1893, but was removed from the post in 1908 following the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in the previous year...

, the Officer of Arms of Dublin Castle, instead stored the jewels in his office. Seven latch keys to the door of the Office of Arms were held by Vicars and his staff, and two keys to the safe containing the insignia were both in the custody of Vicars.

Vicars was known to regularly get drunk on overnight duty and he once awoke to find the jewels around his neck. It is not known whether or not this was a prank or a practice of the actual theft.

The jewels were discovered missing on 6 July 1907, four days before the state visit of King Edward VII

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...

 and Queen Alexandra

Alexandra of Denmark

Alexandra of Denmark was the wife of Edward VII of the United Kingdom...

. The theft is reported to have angered the King, but the visit went ahead.

Vicars refused to resign his position, and similarly refused to appear at a Viceregal Commission into the theft (the commission did not possess powers to subpoena

Subpoena

A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...

 witness

Witness

A witness is someone who has firsthand knowledge about an event, or in the criminal justice systems usually a crime, through his or her senses and can help certify important considerations about the crime or event. A witness who has seen the event first hand is known as an eyewitness...

es) held from 10 January 1908. Vicars argued for a public royal inquiry in lieu of the commission, and publicly accused his second in command, Francis Shackleton, of the theft. (Francis was the brother of the explorer Ernest Shackleton

Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, CVO, OBE was a notable explorer from County Kildare, Ireland, who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration...

.) Shackleton was exonerated in the commission's report, and Vicars was found to have "not exercise[d] due vigilance or proper care as the custodian of the regalia." Arthur Vicars was shot dead by the IRA

Irish Republican Army

The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary military organisation. It was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916...

 on 14 April 1921.

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

While the official authorities never solved the real mystery it was left to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...

 to have a variant on the story solved by Great Britain's greatest detective. In 1908 Conan Doyle wrote The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans

"The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans" is one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is one of eight stories in the cycle collected as His Last Bow...

for The Strand Magazine. Changing the stolen item from the royal jewels to plans for a revolutionary submarine in the British Navy, the author has Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...

 and Dr. Watson set up a trap that catches the criminal, one "Col. Valentine Walters," who is the brother of a high-ranking, respected official. Walters is apparently based (in part) on Francis Shackleton, whose brother was a prominent public hero. Unlike the real life perpetrators of the theft of the Crown Jewels Walters goes to prison, but dies there shortly after his sentence begins.

The Patricius Enigma

A further fictional account of the theft of the jewels was published in 2010 by Sean Marshall entitled The Patricius Enigma. As a plot construct in the story the protagonists reveal not only who stole the jewels but also where they ended up.

Additional reading

• Francis Bamford & Viola Bankes, Vicious Circle: The Case of The Missing Irish Crown Jewels (New York: Horizon Press, 1967), 212p., illus.
• Tim Coates (ed.), The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels (Tim Coates, 2003) ISBN 978-1843810070
• Marshall, Sean. (2010). The Patricius Enigma. ISBN 978-1453804704.

External links

• Detail on the events retrieved March 9, 2011
• A Centenary Report on the Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907 Sean J Murphy (25 January 2008)