Trying to Recover Two Francesco Guardi Capricci Stolen from Russborough, County Wicklow, in 1986

Abstract

Martin Cahill was a notorious Dublin criminal in the 1980s and 1990s who stole anything he could lay his hands on. When Sir Alfred Beit, Bt. announced his and his wife’s gift of their art collection to the Irish people and some idiotic price tag was fixed to it by the press, Cahill thought he’d take a slice of the action. One night he threw a stone through a window at Russborough which set off the burglar alarm. Police arrived from Blessington, County Wicklow, took tea and left the Steward of that great house to contact the alarm company to re-set the alarm the next day. Then Cahill and his people broke in and helped themselves to one of the finest private art collections in the world. Books of varying quality have been written about him, and films made too.