# The General, The Viper, and the Rose of Dugdale: Who Wants to Burgle the Russborough House?

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 5 Nov 2024, 59 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/751a1ef4-dc3c-45eb-8f23-b21e01595c51/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

Ireland's world famous Russborough House belonged to Lord Alfred and Lady Clementine –– two 'violently wealthy' British aristocrats with the families to match. Their palatial manor home seemed to attract crime and intrigue. There was the British heiress turned IRA radical who busted in for a robbery. And her success inspired two IRA-adjacent gangsters –– The General and the Viper –– to see what they could pull in art heists of their own. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:04] Speaker 2: Did You Elizabeth Dutton's I was looking forward to seeing you.
[0:08] Speaker 3: I was looking forward to see you. What I was
[0:10] Speaker 3: looking for? I got it. My mouth is lazy. I
[0:13] Speaker 3: was looking forward to seeing you too, too.
[0:20] Speaker 2: Question. Yeah, you know what's ridiculous?
[0:25] Speaker 3: I do? I do know what is ridiculous?
[0:29] Speaker 2: All right, check to share it with brother.
[0:31] Speaker 3: Two things that you love, uh w w E wrestling?
[0:37] Speaker 2: Okay?
[0:38] Speaker 3: Yes, and you also love pickles.
[0:41] Speaker 2: I do interest.
[0:42] Speaker 3: I'm not mashing those two up. Don't worry about it.
[0:45] Speaker 2: God, I'd hate to have them be ruined.
[0:47] Speaker 3: I'm doing. I'm doing two ridiculous things about those that
[0:51] Speaker 3: are also kind of product mashups has come to us
[0:54] Speaker 3: from Melinda Jagger at Instagram. I was really blown away
[1:00] Speaker 3: and when this was forwarded to me that it was
[1:01] Speaker 3: like right up your alley and that she came up
[1:03] Speaker 3: with both of them. So iglu coolers, I'm so not looking.
[1:07] Speaker 2: I'm I don't trust you at all at this point.
[1:09] Speaker 2: I'm like, you should never this is going to be
[1:11] Speaker 2: a mash It's a mashup. It's a mashup.
[1:14] Speaker 3: I'm just going to say it right now. So wwe
[1:17] Speaker 3: has teamed up with Igloo coolers. You know that makes sense,
[1:20] Speaker 3: Like they sell coolers with like the rock Mart. Okay,
[1:24] Speaker 3: now they've come up with the Championship fanny pack.
[1:28] Speaker 2: Oh my god.
[1:29] Speaker 3: So see it looks like a wrestling belt championship boat
[1:34] Speaker 3: and it's actually a fanny pack and it has a
[1:36] Speaker 3: spacious zipped compartment that is a cooler. So it has
[1:41] Speaker 3: an adjustable waist straps. Yeahs, and it holds up to
[1:48] Speaker 3: four cans in the front. And you know, I'm like
[1:51] Speaker 3: perusing the website.
[1:53] Speaker 2: And then I'm I supposed to take this to like
[1:54] Speaker 2: children's sporting events because you can't do go to any.
[1:56] Speaker 3: Professionals with cans every day.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, just like for like your kids base.
[2:01] Speaker 3: Child's soccer game champions it's for just a beer cos
[2:07] Speaker 3: random child's dance recital. You don't have kids, so you
[2:11] Speaker 3: just show up, all right. So I was looking. They
[2:13] Speaker 3: have reviews on the website, and the most helpful favorable
[2:18] Speaker 3: review was provided by Sleepy Shredder ok and he said,
[2:23] Speaker 3: I dare use five stars. I dare you to take
[2:26] Speaker 3: this to an outdoor sporting event and not be overwhelmed
[2:29] Speaker 3: with compliments and party screams. Best purchase of my life.
[2:34] Speaker 3: And then he's standing in front of like a muscle
[2:37] Speaker 3: car a picture. Yeah, it's in front of a muscle
[2:41] Speaker 3: car called mister insanity. Oh my god, monster, and we'll
[2:47] Speaker 3: put that on the Instagram stories.
[2:50] Speaker 2: I love that.
[2:51] Speaker 3: I know you do. And then the most helpful critical
[2:54] Speaker 3: review was from someone called derby Geek and it's three stars.
[2:58] Speaker 3: Not too shabby. It's a decent quality. But the side
[3:02] Speaker 3: plates should be additional pockets for wallet keys, et cetera.
[3:06] Speaker 3: Insulation could be thicker, but it holds three sodas and
[3:09] Speaker 3: a snack fairly well. And then they paid the kitty tax.
[3:13] Speaker 3: They put a picture of their cat laying next to
[3:15] Speaker 3: it on the bed. Now, Zaren I mentioned this is
[3:19] Speaker 3: running way long, but I mentioned pickles at the top here.
[3:22] Speaker 3: You love pickles, yes? And do you like bread? Not
[3:26] Speaker 3: so much bread, guys.
[3:28] Speaker 2: Ever since Rome built an empire on bread, I've been
[3:31] Speaker 2: a big fan of Elizabeth.
[3:32] Speaker 3: I'm I'm not a bigger fan than I. Well, anyway,
[3:36] Speaker 3: what do you feel about Jimmy John's sandwich shop? Jimmy Johnes,
[3:40] Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever been to.
[3:41] Speaker 2: I don't think I've had Is that a Canadian.
[3:42] Speaker 3: But it's a chain. It's in the south, right, I
[3:44] Speaker 3: don't know it's a chain. Yeah, I think it's. I
[3:47] Speaker 3: think it's actually across this this entire us.
[3:50] Speaker 2: Big Jimmy Johns Sausage. No, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy
[3:55] Speaker 2: John's is saying, big Dan, Big John, Big big big John.
[4:00] Speaker 3: Well, you like, what's the one that what's the subplace
[4:03] Speaker 3: that you like the chain sub?
[4:05] Speaker 2: I like Jersey Mikes and Blimpies.
[4:07] Speaker 3: Okay, so Jersey Mikes. I thought that was the same
[4:09] Speaker 3: thing as this is Jimmy John's. You need to get well,
[4:12] Speaker 3: it's like that anyway. I've not been to them. So
[4:14] Speaker 3: they have this thing called the pickle Witch that they're
[4:18] Speaker 3: doing now, and what they do it's a limited time
[4:22] Speaker 3: October twenty eighth to November something. It's I'm going to
[4:27] Speaker 3: show you here. They don't use.
[4:30] Speaker 2: Bread, oh god.
[4:31] Speaker 3: They just hollow out a giant pickle and the pickles
[4:35] Speaker 3: the bread and this is the way they take a bun.
[4:38] Speaker 2: Really.
[4:38] Speaker 3: They describe the turkey pickle Witch as such, features a
[4:43] Speaker 3: jumbo kosher dill pickle gutted and filled, gutted with two
[4:49] Speaker 3: gutted turkey, proloon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion.
[4:54] Speaker 2: I would probably eat.
[4:55] Speaker 3: I read that whole thing for the gutted part. It's
[4:58] Speaker 3: a gutted pickle that they just fill up with meats
[5:01] Speaker 3: and cheese. So anyway that all of that is ridiculous,
[5:05] Speaker 3: but also it's you know, sour salty delly twist like you,
[5:10] Speaker 3: thank you.
[5:10] Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you that one as a mashup.
[5:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a total mashup and it's different.
[5:14] Speaker 2: Yeah, you did pique my interests.
[5:16] Speaker 3: So I did see, so it was like a good mashup. Yeah, no,
[5:19] Speaker 3: I'll give you if there is such a.
[5:20] Speaker 2: Thing, you got to get a second. I got something ridiculous.
[5:22] Speaker 3: I got lots of things. Yeah.
[5:24] Speaker 2: Now, you know, sometimes like you'll be telling me a
[5:26] Speaker 2: story about a criminal robbing someone, and sometimes like their
[5:28] Speaker 2: target's actually kind of disappointing. It's like, come on, they
[5:31] Speaker 2: don't deserve that, yeah right. And then other time you'll
[5:34] Speaker 2: tell me a story about a criminal robbing someone and
[5:35] Speaker 2: I'm like, hell, yeah, do it again, right, And sometimes
[5:38] Speaker 2: the criminals do exactly that. Oh, Elizabeth, today, I'd like
[5:42] Speaker 2: to tell you about the strange saga of the Rustborough house.
[5:46] Speaker 4: Okay, this is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and
[6:13] Speaker 4: outrageous capers.
[6:14] Speaker 2: Heis and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free
[6:19] Speaker 2: and one hundred percent ridiculous.
[6:23] Speaker 3: Goutted pickles.
[6:25] Speaker 2: You're still on that always will be, Elizabeth. I was
[6:30] Speaker 2: inspired somewhat by you for this.
[6:31] Speaker 3: Story, were you.
[6:32] Speaker 5: Yeah?
[6:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, You've told me some great stories about Baker Street, Bacon,
[6:37] Speaker 2: Patton Gardens. Right, some of those guys I remember that
[6:39] Speaker 2: they were. You know, they break into security deposit boxes,
[6:42] Speaker 2: and you tell me, like these hard men, right, they
[6:43] Speaker 2: find all sorts of salacious evidence inside those security deposit boxes. Right,
[6:48] Speaker 2: I'm talking like photos of royals doing dark deeds. Yeah,
[6:52] Speaker 2: oh boy, if.
[6:52] Speaker 3: I got a story for you, it has nothing to
[6:55] Speaker 3: do with it.
[6:56] Speaker 2: Noose, there are no security deposit boxes.
[6:59] Speaker 3: Do you remember when you all these things?
[7:00] Speaker 2: But there are embarrassed royals.
[7:02] Speaker 5: Oh?
[7:03] Speaker 2: I like that, right, Okay, I'm looking out for you
[7:05] Speaker 2: some robbed aristocrats like that, and some Irish street criminals.
[7:09] Speaker 3: Oh I like that.
[7:10] Speaker 2: I don't know these are your interests. Look at me.
[7:11] Speaker 2: I'm see I'm reciprocating. Now. The story I want to
[7:14] Speaker 2: tell you I told you earlier is it takes place
[7:17] Speaker 2: at the Rustborough House. Okay, mostly this is a palatial
[7:21] Speaker 2: home that was once belonged to Sir Alfred Bite and
[7:24] Speaker 2: his wife, Lady Clementine. Now the pair they purchased their
[7:28] Speaker 2: manor home in County Wicklow in Ireland. I'm not sure
[7:31] Speaker 2: if you know. Okay, So this is a grand home
[7:34] Speaker 2: became home to the family. Sizeable art collection of European masters. Elizabeth.
[7:40] Speaker 2: Just picture a beautiful home, right, and a home that's
[7:43] Speaker 2: just kind of like begging to be robbed. I can
[7:46] Speaker 2: see it, or so thought one woman. Her name Elizabeth
[7:49] Speaker 2: was Rose Dugdale, Yes, and she was also a product
[7:53] Speaker 2: of wealth and privilege. But then she turned against her
[7:56] Speaker 2: upbringing and she sought out justice for her. That meant
[7:59] Speaker 2: joining the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Yeah right, you know,
[8:06] Speaker 2: so there was most Americans know them as the IRA.
[8:09] Speaker 2: Now Rose Dugdale, she took a strange path to open
[8:12] Speaker 2: armed rebellion against her family, class and her upbringing. Her
[8:15] Speaker 2: father was this fabulous millionaire right he worked for Lloyd's
[8:18] Speaker 2: of London. He had his own little syndicate going. He
[8:20] Speaker 2: was an underwriter for them, and that was you know,
[8:22] Speaker 2: lucrative enough for him to own a six hundred acre
[8:25] Speaker 2: farm estate. Of course, the place had a name. It
[8:28] Speaker 2: was called Yardy Farm yaar t y Yarty farm ARTI
[8:32] Speaker 2: fi Yeah, it was in devons Yeah, it's a lot Kelly.
[8:37] Speaker 2: Now in London. The family also had a second stately
[8:39] Speaker 2: house because they wanted to go and hang around the swells.
[8:41] Speaker 2: Of course, that's where Rose was raised and educated. And
[8:44] Speaker 2: this home was in Kensington in West London. Right now.
[8:47] Speaker 2: Rose she attended a school for girls, as was the
[8:49] Speaker 2: custom of the day for wealthy British girls. She went
[8:52] Speaker 2: to Miss Ironside School for Girls.
[8:54] Speaker 3: Wait, miss Ironside, Oh yeah.
[8:56] Speaker 2: Miss Ironsides. And get this, I don't know how this
[8:58] Speaker 2: works out, but I found a quote from a Virginia Ironside,
[9:01] Speaker 2: who I have to assume was the daughter of missus
[9:03] Speaker 2: Ironside or maybe related to the family, but she was
[9:06] Speaker 2: a classmate of Rose, and she remembered her beloved schoolmate
[9:09] Speaker 2: in Virginia Ironside said quote, everyone adored this generous, clever
[9:14] Speaker 2: and dashing millionaire's daughter who was life and laughter. Yeah
[9:19] Speaker 2: right now, Elizabeth. And people ask me like, what's Elizabeth Like,
[9:21] Speaker 2: I'm like, well, she is life and laughter.
[9:26] Speaker 3: Yeah I am you really are? I really am?
[9:28] Speaker 2: So Rose. What happens next for her after missus Ironside
[9:31] Speaker 2: School for Girls, Well, she eventually winds her way through
[9:33] Speaker 2: the schooling. She gets to college and which was very
[9:38] Speaker 2: uncommon for women of her day or even her class. Right,
[9:41] Speaker 2: she attends Saint Anne's College at the University of Oxford.
[9:44] Speaker 2: Oh smart cookie, this one, right, Rose. She studies economics, politics, philosophy.
[9:49] Speaker 2: This fires up her mind, reframes how she sees the world,
[9:52] Speaker 2: and soon enough she's acting out. She's getting into student
[9:55] Speaker 2: based mischief. Right. So at this point, this is like
[9:57] Speaker 2: the early sixties, so there's still rules at places like
[10:01] Speaker 2: Oxford that are very traditional, very like, you know, almost
[10:04] Speaker 2: nineteenth century. That's which is one of the rules is
[10:06] Speaker 2: women are not allowed in the Oxford Union. Yeah, so
[10:09] Speaker 2: she you know.
[10:10] Speaker 3: You can be a student there, but she can't go.
[10:12] Speaker 2: If you're a female student, you can't go to instead
[10:14] Speaker 2: of the Oxford Union. It's like a like a gentleman's club. Basically, sure,
[10:18] Speaker 2: but you're a student. Oh yeah, you know, I agree,
[10:20] Speaker 2: But so's she's like, you you know me, she goes
[10:23] Speaker 2: this is some you know, hinky crap. So she throws
[10:26] Speaker 2: on a shortcut boy's wig and some men's dud with
[10:29] Speaker 2: another female classmate and they dip into the union as
[10:31] Speaker 2: with other women are cheering them on from outside, right,
[10:34] Speaker 2: that's with kind of like She's like, I'm not going
[10:36] Speaker 2: to stand for this. I will make a mockery of this.
[10:38] Speaker 2: Somehow she manages to, I imagine, through the influence of
[10:42] Speaker 2: her father's millions, actually graduate from Oxford. None of this
[10:45] Speaker 2: acting out is you know, negatively impacts her. So she
[10:47] Speaker 2: then decides, you know what, I'm going to leave the
[10:49] Speaker 2: UK for a while, strikeout on my own into the wide,
[10:52] Speaker 2: wide open world. Now at this point, as I said,
[10:54] Speaker 2: the early sixties, she decides to hopscotch over the Atlantic
[10:57] Speaker 2: and study it Mount Holyoke in Massachusetts. Yeah, she focuses
[11:01] Speaker 2: on philosophy, gets a master's degree. Her graduate thesis, if
[11:04] Speaker 2: you were curious, Elizabeth was examining the thinking of Ludwig
[11:08] Speaker 2: Wittgenstein Witckenstein, that boozy swine who was very rarely sober.
[11:14] Speaker 2: I read from the philosopher song, I mean not getting
[11:16] Speaker 2: that right anyway. After that, she dips back home to
[11:18] Speaker 2: the UK and pursues a PhD at the University of London.
[11:22] Speaker 2: There she gets aphd in economics. Now we're into the
[11:25] Speaker 2: late sixties and Rose Dougdee very well educated woman. Her
[11:29] Speaker 2: politics are no longer being informed by dusty, old dead guys.
[11:32] Speaker 2: Now she's got the world of the sixties went live
[11:35] Speaker 2: like thinking, right, So this time we got the UK
[11:37] Speaker 2: student protest in nineteen sixty eight. That fires her up
[11:41] Speaker 2: and Bri basically starts to radicalize her. But what really
[11:44] Speaker 2: kind of kicks her over. She takes a trip to
[11:45] Speaker 2: Cuba to see communism with her own eyes. So she's like,
[11:48] Speaker 2: I like this, this seems to be good. Now the
[11:51] Speaker 2: seventies roll around in Rose Dugdale, she decides she's got
[11:54] Speaker 2: to take part in this new world she sees coming
[11:56] Speaker 2: into being. So this takes her a moment though, because
[11:59] Speaker 2: she's working at the point as an economist.
[12:01] Speaker 5: Right.
[12:01] Speaker 2: She hates her job, so she quits and then she
[12:04] Speaker 2: sells her home. She's got a nice home, she's rich,
[12:06] Speaker 2: she's got a nice home in Chelsea. Sells that turns
[12:09] Speaker 2: her back on her old life, her old ways. She
[12:11] Speaker 2: becomes this radical, a revolutionary socialist. She's doing it, Elizabeth finally, right, finally,
[12:16] Speaker 2: Also because now that she's stepped into who she really is,
[12:19] Speaker 2: she falls in love. I thought you'd like that, fellow revolutionary.
[12:24] Speaker 2: And from what I've read in like Hemingway novels and
[12:26] Speaker 2: books by other radicals, this happens often. Fidel Castro, No,
[12:30] Speaker 2: it was this other guy, Walter Heaton was his name,
[12:33] Speaker 2: Walter Heaton. Yeah, and he was already taken. He was married.
[12:36] Speaker 5: Ye.
[12:38] Speaker 2: Come on, now, you've been in and out of jail
[12:40] Speaker 2: for petty offenses like quote fraudulent consumption of electricity, very
[12:45] Speaker 2: British charge. Fraudulent consumption electricity. Basically he's juicing the gas,
[12:49] Speaker 2: meaning but for the electricity. Now, despite all this stacked
[12:52] Speaker 2: against old Walter Heaton, the radical lovers, they come together
[12:55] Speaker 2: and they won't let anyone stop them, right, So they
[12:57] Speaker 2: plan a life together. To fund their new life trades
[13:00] Speaker 2: in her family money. She's got a bunch of family money.
[13:03] Speaker 2: She owned shares in Lloyd's of London cash. Is that out?
[13:05] Speaker 2: Now she's got a fifteen thousand pound profit. What does
[13:09] Speaker 2: she do with that? Elizabeth, this is plenty of money
[13:10] Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy two. Right, Well, they decide, will we're radical?
[13:14] Speaker 2: So they don't keep it? They give it away to
[13:15] Speaker 2: the poor of London. Okay, yeah, good girl, right, I
[13:18] Speaker 2: told she's committed to the life.
[13:19] Speaker 3: How can they be so caring about other people but
[13:22] Speaker 3: not about his wife.
[13:24] Speaker 2: The morality of radicals is interesting. I all just say that,
[13:27] Speaker 2: having been raised around them, it's it's interesting. It's very flexible.
[13:31] Speaker 2: So they have a bigger cause. It's all about the movement,
[13:36] Speaker 2: about the revolution. All that everything else falls away your
[13:39] Speaker 2: family kids, yeah, exactly, now for their own their own living,
[13:42] Speaker 2: because these two have to make a living the parent
[13:44] Speaker 2: they run a little corner shop.
[13:45] Speaker 5: You know.
[13:46] Speaker 2: They're also meanwhile, they're eagerly following events in North and
[13:48] Speaker 2: Ireland because at this point things are really bad, so
[13:52] Speaker 2: they often travel there to take part in peaceful demonstrations, protest,
[13:55] Speaker 2: what have you. The next year, they decide, you know,
[13:57] Speaker 2: we can get more funds to the revolution from the UK.
[14:00] Speaker 2: So Rose has this idea, I know where to scare
[14:02] Speaker 2: up some funds. You know. She's like, you know, my
[14:04] Speaker 2: family's rich, and Walter Heaton's like, oh that's great. She's like,
[14:07] Speaker 2: you know what we should do. We should rob them.
[14:09] Speaker 2: So they go and they plan and execute a burglary
[14:12] Speaker 2: of her family home in Devon. She's like, they've got
[14:15] Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff there, so it's a success. They
[14:17] Speaker 2: steal expensive oil paintings, I'm talking like from the masters.
[14:21] Speaker 2: They steal silverware from like the stately dining room. Their
[14:24] Speaker 2: total hall is eighty two thousand pounds sterling. Not bad
[14:27] Speaker 2: for one night's work for a couple of radicals robbing
[14:30] Speaker 2: their parents. Now the couple they managed to fence, the artwork,
[14:33] Speaker 2: the silverware. They planned to get this money to the IRA. Right,
[14:37] Speaker 2: it's June of that same year. These young lovers, they
[14:39] Speaker 2: get caught and arrested for the burglary of her parents' home.
[14:43] Speaker 2: People were like, I know who that is. So the
[14:45] Speaker 2: case he goes to trial. Rose Dugdale uses her time
[14:48] Speaker 2: on the witness stand to denounce her parents, to talk
[14:51] Speaker 2: bad about her family, her class, the exploitative nature of capitalism.
[14:55] Speaker 2: She rails against the British their policies in the Irish Republic.
[14:58] Speaker 2: At one point she shouts in court and I quote
[15:01] Speaker 2: the British have an army of occupation in a small
[15:03] Speaker 2: part of Ireland, but not for long. She's making threats
[15:07] Speaker 2: from this witness stand.
[15:08] Speaker 5: Right.
[15:08] Speaker 2: Her father appears in court right as a witness for
[15:11] Speaker 2: the prosecution. His testimony is devastating. From the witness stand,
[15:15] Speaker 2: her father tells his daughter, I love you, but I
[15:18] Speaker 2: hate everything you stand for. Now afterward, yeah, this is
[15:21] Speaker 2: like things are heating up. The press is loving this.
[15:24] Speaker 2: Oh yeah. But he also at this point, you know,
[15:25] Speaker 2: because as I said, the press is loving it. He
[15:27] Speaker 2: decides to release a statement of his own to the press.
[15:30] Speaker 2: So mister Dugdale says, I don't want to appeal, how
[15:33] Speaker 2: hard haunted, but I've done everything I can for her.
[15:36] Speaker 2: She knows perfectly well she could turn to me if
[15:38] Speaker 2: she wanted to. So he's like, I'm a good dad,
[15:41] Speaker 2: darn it.
[15:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, don't talk to the press.
[15:44] Speaker 2: I know you. I believe in your rule.
[15:46] Speaker 3: What is wrong with you?
[15:47] Speaker 2: So anyway, doomed by her father's testimony, in her own
[15:49] Speaker 2: courtroom outburst, Rose Dougdale found guilty and when she hears
[15:53] Speaker 2: the verdict read, she tells the judge and I quote
[15:56] Speaker 2: in finding me guilty, you have turned me from an
[15:58] Speaker 2: intellectual recalcitr into a freedom fighter. I know no finer title.
[16:04] Speaker 2: So we got our own little like che Guavar now right. Meanwhile,
[16:07] Speaker 2: her married lover Walter Heaton. He's also found guilty. He's
[16:10] Speaker 2: a you know, he's got a rap sheet this pretty
[16:12] Speaker 2: long at this point beyond stealing electricity. Now he's sentenced
[16:16] Speaker 2: to six years in prison. Right and Rose Dougdale she
[16:19] Speaker 2: catches a lighter sentence. She's given two years and then
[16:22] Speaker 2: it's suspended. No jail time, no interesting all right. The
[16:25] Speaker 2: judge is like, well, this rich girl, she's unlikely to
[16:27] Speaker 2: affect it again exactly but free and good to her word.
[16:30] Speaker 2: Rose Dougdale does indeed become a full fledged revolutionary I know,
[16:34] Speaker 2: no finer title. Now she hops on a boat, goes
[16:37] Speaker 2: to Ireland and joins the IRA. Oh god, yeah, January
[16:40] Speaker 2: of seventy four. She's in her first direct action. So
[16:43] Speaker 2: what does she do. She and a few other IRA
[16:45] Speaker 2: regulars they hijack a helicopter in the Republic of Ireland
[16:49] Speaker 2: and then they fly it to Northern Ireland DA DA.
[16:52] Speaker 2: Once there, they drop bombs on a Royal Ulster Constabulary
[16:57] Speaker 2: police station.
[16:58] Speaker 6: Right.
[16:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a daring daytime arraid. Rose calls it the
[17:00] Speaker 2: best day of her life. But apparently they weren't working
[17:03] Speaker 2: with the best bomb makers from the IRA because the
[17:07] Speaker 2: bombs were duds, Elizabeth. Nothing happens, no one gets hurt,
[17:10] Speaker 2: no bombs go off.
[17:11] Speaker 3: I wonder if that was on purpose, if they were
[17:14] Speaker 3: like trying to test her. I wouldn't trust her.
[17:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know the slish woman is coming over here. No,
[17:20] Speaker 2: so none of this matters if the bombs go off
[17:22] Speaker 2: or don't go off. The police and the Brits they
[17:24] Speaker 2: treated as a legit bomb attack. So now they come
[17:27] Speaker 2: hard for the purpse and Rose Dougdale. She sees her
[17:30] Speaker 2: face on wanted posters and because someone id's her to
[17:33] Speaker 2: the police, Yeah, the new arrest warrant is issued. Rose
[17:36] Speaker 2: Dugdale's now the most wanted woman in Ireland and the UK.
[17:40] Speaker 2: She's officially a wanted revolutionary. She did it, She done,
[17:43] Speaker 2: did it, Elizabeth. And that's when Rose has her next
[17:46] Speaker 2: big idea. She's like, well, I'm on the run. Me
[17:49] Speaker 2: and my new IRA gang, we should rob another home
[17:51] Speaker 2: of wealthy exploiters that I happen to know. This time,
[17:54] Speaker 2: they decide to go and rob from not Rose's own family,
[17:58] Speaker 2: but instead the Rustborough House one I've told you about,
[18:01] Speaker 2: the home of Sir Alfred Bite and his wife Clementine.
[18:04] Speaker 2: It's also home to a great collection of master works
[18:06] Speaker 2: from Vermier, Rubens, Goya, Gainsborough, like you name it, of
[18:10] Speaker 2: the Picasso, they got it right. The night of the robbery,
[18:12] Speaker 2: the gang of IRA radicals they break into the home
[18:15] Speaker 2: Rose and her three other IRA gang members. They catch
[18:18] Speaker 2: the couple. The lord is seventy one years old, right,
[18:21] Speaker 2: and his wife's a little bit younger. Lady Byte totally unaware.
[18:24] Speaker 2: They're just listening to classical music from a record player, like,
[18:27] Speaker 2: oh I love it, just flip it over exactly right,
[18:30] Speaker 2: just collected. So the burglars burst in surprise them. They
[18:34] Speaker 2: call the wealthy coupit capitalist pigs, exploits, right, all all
[18:39] Speaker 2: this stuff right. They announce that they are there to
[18:42] Speaker 2: rob them. Right. They shove the wealthy couple around at gunpoint.
[18:45] Speaker 2: The wealthy couple doesn't move fast enough for them, so
[18:47] Speaker 2: they start pushing them and I'm talking like down a
[18:49] Speaker 2: flight of cold marble stairs. Oh yeah, mean stuff. They
[18:52] Speaker 2: eventually bound and gagged the couple right then this Then
[18:55] Speaker 2: they get busy getting what they came for. Rose cases
[18:58] Speaker 2: the joint. Remember she's well edged, so she points out
[19:01] Speaker 2: all the most valuable works of art in their great
[19:04] Speaker 2: art collection. They end up stealing nineteen paintings nineteen yea
[19:08] Speaker 2: and some totals worth about eight million Irish pounds, and
[19:10] Speaker 2: then they disappear into the night. They get away with it, Elizabeth.
[19:14] Speaker 2: Now you know how we always talk about how you
[19:15] Speaker 2: have to have a plan to fence your stolen art.
[19:18] Speaker 2: You can just go in and steal it.
[19:19] Speaker 3: And then we got away, and you got to trust
[19:21] Speaker 3: that fence.
[19:22] Speaker 2: Totally because there's all these other moving parts after the
[19:25] Speaker 2: original heights. Well, they did have a plan. I wouldn't
[19:28] Speaker 2: say it was the best plan, but they did have
[19:31] Speaker 2: a plan.
[19:32] Speaker 3: Well, and don't forget too that whatever you fence it
[19:34] Speaker 3: for be a huge like half, you're going to get
[19:37] Speaker 3: fifty percent or less of the value.
[19:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, more likely somewhere between twenty five percent and fifty percent. Yeah,
[19:43] Speaker 2: depends on what it is how hard it is to
[19:44] Speaker 2: move Anyway, the IRA they decide we can move these.
[19:48] Speaker 2: So they send a ransom note to the police. Oh god,
[19:51] Speaker 2: and they offer to return the paintings, but in exchange
[19:53] Speaker 2: for freedom for two young women who've been imprisoned on
[19:56] Speaker 2: charges of bombing. So two regulars right Laurs and Marion
[20:00] Speaker 2: Price sisters, and they are presently on a hunger strike.
[20:03] Speaker 3: So it's urgent, right, but yeah, this is what late
[20:05] Speaker 3: seventy four, twenty four. Okay, yeah, So the.
[20:08] Speaker 2: Irish police, the Guarde, they don't take the offer they said.
[20:12] Speaker 2: They conduct a week long nationwide man hunt for the
[20:14] Speaker 2: ira Art thieves. They're like, no, we're not taking it.
[20:17] Speaker 2: They find a big load of bub kiss absolutely nothing,
[20:21] Speaker 2: zero leads, nothing, right, and then for some reason they
[20:24] Speaker 2: get lucky. Someone talks. Two beat patrol cops are out
[20:27] Speaker 2: and they're just like this. They're told about a woman,
[20:29] Speaker 2: this rich woman who's come to town, who recently moved into
[20:32] Speaker 2: town and rented a farmhouse in County Cork in Cork,
[20:34] Speaker 2: okay right, and that was like hell is suspicious for
[20:36] Speaker 2: the locals. They're like, we don't have just rich random
[20:38] Speaker 2: young women rent out a house by themselves, right. So
[20:41] Speaker 2: May fourth, the police go to the house in County
[20:43] Speaker 2: Cork and the house has been indeed rented by one woman,
[20:47] Speaker 2: Rose dug Dale. Thieves all get caught arrested. The police
[20:51] Speaker 2: discover the stolen paintings. They're just rolled up and hidden
[20:53] Speaker 2: in like the trunk of a car. Or for the
[20:55] Speaker 2: British listeners, the boots a Rose Dugdale. She goes down
[20:59] Speaker 2: for the art heist, right, also the stolen helicopter police
[21:02] Speaker 2: station bombing that also catches her In her trial, she
[21:05] Speaker 2: pleads that she was quote proudly and incorruptibly guilty. Well,
[21:10] Speaker 2: at this time she catches a real prison sentence nine
[21:13] Speaker 2: years Right, when her sentence is read aloud, the now
[21:16] Speaker 2: thirty three year old revolutionary raises a defiant fist. And
[21:20] Speaker 2: keep in mind this is all happening around the same
[21:21] Speaker 2: time as Patty Hurst is in America. So the British
[21:24] Speaker 2: and American press are both conflating these two stories. They're like,
[21:27] Speaker 2: what is going on with heiresses? Why are the rich
[21:30] Speaker 2: women so unhappy?
[21:31] Speaker 4: Right?
[21:32] Speaker 2: So, at this point, just to give you a little
[21:34] Speaker 2: update on her, Rose Dougdale is free. She's made a
[21:36] Speaker 2: life for herself outside of prison. She helps other inmates,
[21:39] Speaker 2: four brand mates. She's done a lot, right, but she
[21:41] Speaker 2: will rarely and if she can avoid it, never talk
[21:44] Speaker 2: about the bomb tossing, helicopter, hijacking, arts, stealing radical.
[21:48] Speaker 3: Pass So she doesn't. Does she still work for you know,
[21:52] Speaker 3: socialifications in the island.
[21:54] Speaker 2: I don't know. She's English played at it. It's a
[22:00] Speaker 2: theoretical fight for her so, but she did give an
[22:03] Speaker 2: interview in twenty twelve to the Irish outlet RTE and
[22:06] Speaker 2: Rose Dougdale said she had no regrets. Oh well, that's
[22:10] Speaker 2: so she's still down for the costs. And now she
[22:11] Speaker 2: also added, and I quote, you mustn't forget. It was
[22:14] Speaker 2: a very exciting times. The world looked as if it
[22:16] Speaker 2: could change, it was likely to be changed, and whoever
[22:20] Speaker 2: you were, you could play a part in that. So
[22:24] Speaker 2: you know, gotta give her that fired up.
[22:26] Speaker 3: It was an exciting time. She didn't have a boot
[22:28] Speaker 3: on her neck. It was playing revolutionary exactly.
[22:33] Speaker 2: So let's take a little break and wait, get back.
[22:35] Speaker 2: We'll return to the Rustborough House for another robbery of
[22:38] Speaker 2: their great art collection, because for some reason, the IRA
[22:41] Speaker 2: regulars seemed to love to rob old Lord Alfred and
[22:44] Speaker 2: Lady Clementine back in two and two. Oh, Elizabeth, we're back.
[23:09] Speaker 3: We're ready to.
[23:12] Speaker 2: Dip into the Roustborough House, totally ready. I need to
[23:14] Speaker 2: tell you about the owner.
[23:15] Speaker 3: Did you google street view this place?
[23:18] Speaker 2: I did. I looked at the outside, but I didn't
[23:19] Speaker 2: drive around all the streets outside of it. It's a
[23:23] Speaker 2: man or home. It's like outside of town.
[23:25] Speaker 3: I didn't try and look at them.
[23:26] Speaker 2: I looked at the fields, I looked at the home.
[23:28] Speaker 3: I'm trying to go around the back and look.
[23:29] Speaker 2: In from different streets. It's a manor home. You're looking
[23:33] Speaker 2: across the Silds.
[23:34] Speaker 3: Some of us like to do some research.
[23:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, do your own research, Elizabeth. So
[23:39] Speaker 2: these owners of this home, Lord Alford and Lady Clementine, Clementine,
[23:44] Speaker 2: I need to tell you about my darling, about them,
[23:46] Speaker 2: But first to give you a little bit of perspective,
[23:48] Speaker 2: let me tell you about her cousins, the Mitford sisters.
[23:51] Speaker 2: I found them because I was research, Elizabeth. So her
[23:56] Speaker 2: cousins flow back in the day, there was this man
[23:59] Speaker 2: who was named Lord Reddisdale or Ridsdale, and that was
[24:02] Speaker 2: the name bestowed on him. His government name was David
[24:05] Speaker 2: Freeman Mitford. Okay, right now. This cat had a wife
[24:07] Speaker 2: named Sidney, just like the city in Australia. She spelled it. No,
[24:10] Speaker 2: I with the y. So mister and missus Mitford. They
[24:13] Speaker 2: have six daughters, aka the Mitford sisters. They were quite
[24:17] Speaker 2: a group. Oh yeah, there was Pamela, Diana, Jessica, Deborah,
[24:21] Speaker 2: Nancy and Unity.
[24:23] Speaker 4: No.
[24:23] Speaker 2: But I want to do it on path. There was Pamela,
[24:25] Speaker 2: who was a charming beauty. And there was Nancy, she
[24:27] Speaker 2: became a best selling novelist. Yes, there was Deborah, she
[24:30] Speaker 2: married well, she became the Duchess of Devonshire. There was Diana,
[24:34] Speaker 2: she didn't marry as well. She was betrothed to the
[24:35] Speaker 2: British fascist leader, Sir Oswald Mosley. That's four of the
[24:39] Speaker 2: Midford sisters. There was also Jessica. She went the other way.
[24:42] Speaker 2: She became a rabid communist. She eloped and ran off
[24:46] Speaker 2: to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War.
[24:48] Speaker 3: No way.
[24:49] Speaker 2: And finally Elizabeth there was Unity Valkyrie. Coincidentally, she was
[24:53] Speaker 2: born in Alaska, in a mining town called Swastika, Alaska.
[24:57] Speaker 3: What unity? Oh God?
[24:59] Speaker 2: Born in Alaska?
[25:01] Speaker 3: Did she have tiny hands?
[25:03] Speaker 2: I guess she saw her birthplace as a sign because
[25:05] Speaker 2: she grew up to become obsessed with Adolf Hitler. She
[25:08] Speaker 2: hung out with him one hundred and forty different occasions.
[25:11] Speaker 2: She was a full on Hitler groupie. Yeah. So that's
[25:15] Speaker 2: the Midford Sisters British aristocracy if you can believe it.
[25:18] Speaker 2: Not just Nancy, but four of these sisters wrote best
[25:21] Speaker 2: selling books, none of them going into prison. They didn't
[25:23] Speaker 2: even say time. Yeah, I know. But the Midford Sisters
[25:27] Speaker 2: where they were by all reports, beautiful, charming, wickedly funny,
[25:31] Speaker 2: loan de fascism. But the Midford Sisters had a cousin
[25:34] Speaker 2: named Clementine bite or that would be her married name.
[25:37] Speaker 2: But she was also wealthy, beautiful, charming, etcetera, etcetera. Right,
[25:40] Speaker 2: her cousins referred to her as one of quote London's
[25:44] Speaker 2: ten most elegant women. I didn't make the top twenty
[25:52] Speaker 2: to cousin Clementine, right, was closest with Unity, the Hitler groupie,
[25:55] Speaker 2: and in fact Unity Midford once played host to cousin
[25:58] Speaker 2: Clementine in Berlin. That's where they gathered with throngs of
[26:01] Speaker 2: others in the streets of Berlin to see the Fury
[26:04] Speaker 2: drive past. Unity urged her cousin Clementine to waggle a
[26:08] Speaker 2: flagg at her fascist fave.
[26:10] Speaker 3: Right.
[26:10] Speaker 2: A little while later, Lady Clementine personally met Hitler thanks
[26:13] Speaker 2: to Unity. Yeah, yeah, so the girls. They also went
[26:16] Speaker 2: out on dates with it. One night she has a
[26:18] Speaker 2: storm trooper took Clementine out in Berlin to show we're
[26:20] Speaker 2: a good time Elizabeth. But that romance didn't pan out
[26:24] Speaker 2: so throughout the nineteen thirties, As one of Clementine's cousins
[26:27] Speaker 2: joins the communists and runs off to Spain to fight
[26:29] Speaker 2: the fascist, and her other cousin marries the most famous
[26:31] Speaker 2: fascist in Britain and another cousin obsessed about Hitler, it
[26:35] Speaker 2: seemed like Clementine might get caught up in all this
[26:37] Speaker 2: fascist communist cousins things. Elizabeth, you and I we both
[26:41] Speaker 2: love Peaky Blinders. Yes, you remember how the show covers
[26:43] Speaker 2: this period of time, right with Owsley as a character, Yeah, right,
[26:47] Speaker 2: and his wife the one who wants Tommy Shelby. Yeah,
[26:50] Speaker 2: that's Diana Midford, right right, right right? Yeah, sir, you
[26:53] Speaker 2: remember how Tommy Shelby had to work with Churchill to
[26:56] Speaker 2: keep the fascists from taking over the UK from the inside. Yeah,
[26:59] Speaker 2: that's FAE were talking about that group right. Eventually, years later,
[27:04] Speaker 2: cousin Clementine did find herself a husband. His name was
[27:07] Speaker 2: Sir Alfred Bait and interestingly, he was Jewish. She was
[27:12] Speaker 2: just a yeah, did I was. When I was doing
[27:15] Speaker 2: the research, I was very confused, a lot of like,
[27:18] Speaker 2: let me corroborate this, let me go find a third source.
[27:20] Speaker 3: Unity was like the best is yet to come. They
[27:23] Speaker 3: didn't know that's what it meant.
[27:24] Speaker 2: I had no idea. Yeah, so Clementine's fascination with the
[27:27] Speaker 2: fascist likely ended at this point. I'm hoping anyway. Alfred,
[27:30] Speaker 2: Lord Alfred Bite was older, but he was much like Clementine.
[27:33] Speaker 2: He was ultra wealthy, privileged, another member of the British aristocracy. Like,
[27:37] Speaker 2: I think you need to understand this guy. When he
[27:39] Speaker 2: was twenty seven years old, some old rich geezer and
[27:42] Speaker 2: his family croaked a guy, uncle Otto, who was nicknamed
[27:45] Speaker 2: the rand Lord. That's because he was the co founder
[27:48] Speaker 2: of the De Beer's diamond mining company. Oh whoa yeah,
[27:52] Speaker 2: from him, Sir Alfred inherited his fortune, a vast fortune
[27:56] Speaker 2: of golden obviously, he inherited a super lucrative South African
[27:59] Speaker 2: dye in mind. Yeah, and the de Beer's fortune. So
[28:02] Speaker 2: as a young man he becomes a Conservative Minister of Parliament.
[28:05] Speaker 2: The couple was part of the glitterati of London society.
[28:08] Speaker 2: They buy a home in Kensington Palace Gardens, that neighborhood
[28:11] Speaker 2: we often seem to talk about. Yeah, the street that
[28:14] Speaker 2: they lived on was called Millionaire's Row, right, so that
[28:16] Speaker 2: should give you a sense of their digs. Right, they were,
[28:18] Speaker 2: as you say, violently rich.
[28:20] Speaker 3: That's exactly what they are.
[28:22] Speaker 2: So wow. Right, So Lady Clementine and her husband, Lord Alfred,
[28:25] Speaker 2: they're chilling with those types of British aristocracy, which is,
[28:28] Speaker 2: as I said, super wild to me. But you know,
[28:30] Speaker 2: because it's that Lord Alfred' Jewish.
[28:31] Speaker 3: But you know, I mean, let's face it, she's she
[28:35] Speaker 3: has been raised in this atmosphere where if you have
[28:37] Speaker 3: enough money, you.
[28:38] Speaker 2: Know that matters, None of that matter. Yes, that's what
[28:40] Speaker 2: they're all surfing that.
[28:41] Speaker 3: Way, Yeah, completely discussing.
[28:43] Speaker 2: So Lord Alfred and Lady Clementine, they are the wealthiest,
[28:46] Speaker 2: most attractive young couple in London society. They are like
[28:49] Speaker 2: the Bee's knees now together. They were all tight with
[28:52] Speaker 2: the British Royalty of course, right, some of whom were
[28:54] Speaker 2: rumored to be down to see the Nazis prevail in
[28:57] Speaker 2: the late thirties. Yeah, Like, I mean, there was one
[29:00] Speaker 2: the American ambassador to the UK won, Joseph Kennedy. He
[29:03] Speaker 2: was convinced that the Nazis could win and was secretly
[29:05] Speaker 2: working to convince the Brits to you know, kind of
[29:07] Speaker 2: concede to defeat. Let's make this work out now. Being
[29:10] Speaker 2: a Conservative minister of Parliament, Sir Alfred was also friendly
[29:13] Speaker 2: with the King Edward the eighth at the time, but
[29:16] Speaker 2: this is before he abdicated his throne because he wanted
[29:18] Speaker 2: to marry Wallace Simpsons, the American right. This guy was
[29:22] Speaker 2: also friendly with his replacement, King George the sixth, who
[29:25] Speaker 2: was Queen Elizabeth's father. At this point, World War Two
[29:28] Speaker 2: breaks out between their two nations because we're at the
[29:30] Speaker 2: late thirties early forties, and the Nazis of course lose
[29:33] Speaker 2: the war, and later when the Yeah Labor Party also
[29:36] Speaker 2: carries the elections in forty five in a landslide, so
[29:40] Speaker 2: Sir Alfred decides it's time to pick up sticks and
[29:42] Speaker 2: get out of the UK. So he and Clementine relocate
[29:45] Speaker 2: to South Africa. Yeah, now down there, he just considers
[29:50] Speaker 2: getting back into politics. But South Africa enacted the apartheid
[29:54] Speaker 2: like laws in nineteen forty eight. Sir Alfred's like, oh,
[29:57] Speaker 2: enough of this, and he and his wife Clementine, they
[30:00] Speaker 2: they relocate, They pick up sticks. They moved to Ireland.
[30:02] Speaker 2: So this guy always surprises. I's I can get some
[30:06] Speaker 2: of that much right, well, this point they set roots.
[30:08] Speaker 2: They buy a big manor home, a Palladian mansion, and
[30:11] Speaker 2: they name it Russborough House. Their new home is built
[30:14] Speaker 2: in the style of Venetian mansions of the sixteen hundreds.
[30:17] Speaker 2: That's the Palladian part. I think, big columns out front,
[30:20] Speaker 2: motivated by the Neoclassical revivals that are going on, all
[30:23] Speaker 2: that ancient Greek, ancient Roman architecture. Okay, now that they
[30:26] Speaker 2: got their home, they live out their days there, right,
[30:28] Speaker 2: but intrigue would still find them. Elizabeth Well intrigued in crime.
[30:32] Speaker 2: But first the intrigue. When Lord Bate passed away in
[30:36] Speaker 2: May of nineteen ninety four, he left his wife in
[30:39] Speaker 2: charge of their vast fortune and also his legacy and
[30:41] Speaker 2: his trove of secrets, because trust he had plenty of those.
[30:45] Speaker 3: Did he have like open this box when I die?
[30:47] Speaker 5: Oh?
[30:48] Speaker 2: Yeah? So he left a will because he's mad rich,
[30:50] Speaker 2: of course he leaves a will. And in his will
[30:51] Speaker 2: he had all these stipulations about what to do with
[30:53] Speaker 2: his wealth, his possessions, his homes, blah blah blah. It's
[30:55] Speaker 2: fabulous art collection. But also he had a stipulation that
[30:59] Speaker 2: carried over to win years later. In two thousand and
[31:02] Speaker 2: five Lady Clementine passed. It showed up in her will.
[31:05] Speaker 2: She of course also has a will because you know,
[31:07] Speaker 2: this is one of the richest women in the UK, right,
[31:09] Speaker 2: So her will had this one notable stipulation about her
[31:13] Speaker 2: husband's old diaries from the war years. Lady Clementine's will
[31:18] Speaker 2: stipulated that the diary remain under lock and key until
[31:21] Speaker 2: exactly twenty one years after the death of Queen Elizabeth,
[31:25] Speaker 2: or until seventy years after Lady Bates death, which ever occurred. First, okay,
[31:30] Speaker 2: since she died in two thousand and five, twenty one
[31:32] Speaker 2: years after Queen Elizabeth, who died in twenty twenty two,
[31:35] Speaker 2: So in twenty forty three we'll get to learn whatever
[31:38] Speaker 2: was in those diaries. Oh right, why all the secrecy?
[31:41] Speaker 2: Is it something to do with the fascist members of
[31:44] Speaker 2: the British Royalty.
[31:45] Speaker 3: I'm going to guess, yeah.
[31:46] Speaker 2: Perhaps King Edward the aighthy British Canyon we talked about.
[31:49] Speaker 2: He was said to be a fascist sympathizer and like
[31:52] Speaker 2: I looked into him and for his honeymoon, he and
[31:55] Speaker 2: Wallace Simpson, they toured Nazi Germany for their honeymoon.
[31:58] Speaker 3: For their honeymoon.
[31:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, so clearly this family, Lord Alfred and Lady Clementine,
[32:02] Speaker 2: they were not only violently wealthy, but they also had
[32:05] Speaker 2: huge world changing secrets and they're not releasing them.
[32:08] Speaker 4: So it is.
[32:08] Speaker 2: The Irish newspaper, The Sunday Independent noted and I quote,
[32:12] Speaker 2: the only conclusion that can be drawn from Lady bates
[32:14] Speaker 2: Will is that the diaries have been suppressed to avoid
[32:16] Speaker 2: causing the queen embarrassment during her lifetime. Well she's dead
[32:19] Speaker 2: and apparently twenty one years beyond that, so anyway, Elizabeth.
[32:22] Speaker 3: On they figure let Charles run his course too.
[32:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess you've come across this issue with security
[32:28] Speaker 2: deposit robbers, right, who found indiscrete images of naked royals
[32:31] Speaker 2: and cocaine royals or whatever. Well, what do you think
[32:35] Speaker 2: was in those diaries? Like what dirty tales of British
[32:37] Speaker 2: royals could be in those pages other than them being fascist?
[32:40] Speaker 2: Is there anything that the warriors? Yeah, from the thirties too,
[32:44] Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I don't know. Now. I was trying to imagine,
[32:47] Speaker 2: like what else would it be, like, is there anything else?
[32:50] Speaker 3: Well, I mean, is it like some Epstein stuff?
[32:53] Speaker 6: Oh?
[32:53] Speaker 2: Yeah? Also I was thinking like some Kubrick eyes wide
[32:56] Speaker 2: shut stuff, but then you got all masks on who cares.
[32:59] Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So I feel like it's gonna it'll have
[33:03] Speaker 3: to be like Nazis.
[33:05] Speaker 2: I think it has to be that. Yeah, just like
[33:06] Speaker 2: Nazi parties or something. They're like walking around like in
[33:09] Speaker 2: like swastika sashes or something.
[33:10] Speaker 3: You don't think about it. It's just like the turmoil
[33:14] Speaker 3: that that England went through and the UK went through completely.
[33:18] Speaker 2: And yeah, to be like to know that the leaders
[33:21] Speaker 2: were like, oh we don't care.
[33:23] Speaker 3: Which they all everyone I guess kind of knew, but
[33:25] Speaker 3: like to have the confirmation. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, I
[33:29] Speaker 3: think that's it.
[33:29] Speaker 2: So once this period of trustee care in Sir Alford's
[33:32] Speaker 2: diaries will be handed over to the National Library of Ireland,
[33:35] Speaker 2: so I'm hoping they will take the opportunity to embarrass
[33:37] Speaker 2: the British royal family.
[33:39] Speaker 6: That's just me.
[33:39] Speaker 3: If the IRA are going to steal something, hello, I.
[33:43] Speaker 2: Know right, well this one they already got it to
[33:46] Speaker 2: the trustees. So well that's the intrigue. Next comes the crime. Now,
[33:50] Speaker 2: first we had Rose Dugdale's robbery of Sir Alford and
[33:53] Speaker 2: Lady Clementine's prize Dark collection well that wasn't the only
[33:56] Speaker 2: time that someone decided to rob the Lord and lady. Right.
[33:59] Speaker 2: First came the IRA, Next came some IRA adjacent Irish gangsters. Right,
[34:04] Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, that's a mighty fine idea. Don't mind
[34:06] Speaker 2: if I do. Now we'll take a little break and
[34:09] Speaker 2: after these messages, I'll tell you about how crime comes
[34:11] Speaker 2: back to the Roustboro House. All right, Elizabeth, we're back
[34:34] Speaker 2: sarn Okay. Now, I know we had to kick you
[34:36] Speaker 2: through some aristocrats a right, and some of that suff
[34:39] Speaker 2: degree And it wasn't a lot of fun in there
[34:41] Speaker 2: because like, oh, we got a lot Nazis and fascists
[34:43] Speaker 2: and rich people being violently wealthy. But I just wanted
[34:46] Speaker 2: to set that up for us to rob them some more.
[34:48] Speaker 3: Yeah, let's do it.
[34:49] Speaker 2: We're gonna get at it. This Rustboro House is about it.
[34:52] Speaker 3: Yeah, they deserve it.
[34:53] Speaker 2: So if folks didn't know it before Rose Dugdale robbed them,
[34:56] Speaker 2: Irish folks certainly knew it after she hit the Rustboro House.
[34:59] Speaker 2: That place home to the most famous private art collection
[35:02] Speaker 2: in Ireland. Right, Elizabeth, I'm talking this home boasted one
[35:06] Speaker 2: hundred and fifty master work paintings, not to mention priceless books,
[35:10] Speaker 2: ob Jeo's dey art, the lush furniture and antiques, which
[35:15] Speaker 2: raises the question after they were robbed, what kind of
[35:17] Speaker 2: security did Sir Alfred and Lady Clementine install at their
[35:21] Speaker 2: palatial And.
[35:22] Speaker 3: I'm sure the jewelry was nuts.
[35:23] Speaker 2: Oh, yes, all of it. That's a great question, Elizabeth.
[35:26] Speaker 2: What kind of security, Yeah, jewry inadequate. Yes. According to
[35:32] Speaker 2: Deirdre Rossum, the administrator of Rustboro House, she has claimed
[35:37] Speaker 2: that the manor home was quote a very sophisticated, up
[35:40] Speaker 2: to date security system. But the house is in a
[35:42] Speaker 2: rural area and it is open to the public. If
[35:44] Speaker 2: a gang is really determined to rob the house, it
[35:47] Speaker 2: is very difficult to deal with them.
[35:48] Speaker 3: Oh, so it's open to the So they don't have
[35:51] Speaker 3: the money to keep it running. They do to it.
[35:53] Speaker 2: They do the whole thing.
[35:53] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[35:55] Speaker 2: At this point, at this point, like late the later period,
[35:58] Speaker 2: they lived there for many years. Yeah, they started getting robbed.
[36:00] Speaker 2: They were like, what's not live in the museum that's
[36:02] Speaker 2: getting robbed all the time. At this point, though, I
[36:04] Speaker 2: should introduce you to Dublin crime boss Martin Cahill Street
[36:08] Speaker 2: name the General, the General. Yes, he was known as
[36:12] Speaker 2: Ireland's most colorful crook. I've never been there to Ireland,
[36:16] Speaker 2: but I have to imagine that that is not an
[36:18] Speaker 2: easy title to claim.
[36:19] Speaker 3: I wouldn't think so.
[36:20] Speaker 2: Lots of contenders each year for Ireland's most colorful Crook.
[36:24] Speaker 2: That's just my take. I mean nothing. I'm not casting stones,
[36:26] Speaker 2: I gave anything. I'm applaud yew I've.
[36:28] Speaker 3: Been there, but I'm just I don't know the criminal elements.
[36:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know you don't go seeking out what I know.
[36:33] Speaker 2: So you to get a better sense of the General
[36:35] Speaker 2: Martin Khill, Elizabeth, I'd like you to picture a man
[36:37] Speaker 2: who's heavy set, bald, loves his Harley Davidson Hoggs. But
[36:41] Speaker 2: he's also a bird lover who loves pigeons. He's got
[36:44] Speaker 2: a real obsession with pigeons. The General is a complex man, Elizabeth,
[36:47] Speaker 2: but he looks like a brute. Now. By the time
[36:49] Speaker 2: Rose Dugdale grew up to be an active revolutionary in
[36:52] Speaker 2: the early seventies, meanwhile, Martin Cahill had already been identified
[36:56] Speaker 2: by the guard Ae the Irish Police detectives as a
[36:59] Speaker 2: quote major criminal.
[37:00] Speaker 5: Now.
[37:01] Speaker 2: Yeah, around that time, he was mostly a stick up man.
[37:03] Speaker 2: Who robbed armored cars and trucks. By the early eighties,
[37:06] Speaker 2: though he was on the come up, he'd figured out
[37:08] Speaker 2: some stuff right. Due to his increasing profile, he wanted
[37:10] Speaker 2: to get himself some protection. And I don't mean like guns,
[37:13] Speaker 2: he's not an American. Yeah.
[37:14] Speaker 6: No.
[37:14] Speaker 2: Instead for protection for him is I should steal some
[37:17] Speaker 2: master works of art.
[37:18] Speaker 3: Oh, bargaining chip, Yeah, exactly.
[37:20] Speaker 2: That's why he targeted the Rostborough House. He wanted bargaining
[37:23] Speaker 2: chips or like you know, or twelve of them, something
[37:25] Speaker 2: to trade if he ever felt the walls kind of
[37:27] Speaker 2: closing in or he and his crew wanted to make that.
[37:30] Speaker 3: That's a common you know, we've talked about it. That's
[37:32] Speaker 3: a common reason to steal the art is to have it.
[37:35] Speaker 3: I didn't know.
[37:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, Like European thieves are big on this.
[37:38] Speaker 3: This is a moo.
[37:39] Speaker 2: So eventually the Fateful Night arrives. It's May nineteen eighty six.
[37:43] Speaker 2: But rather than me tell you about Elizabeth, I'd like.
[37:45] Speaker 7: You to close your eyes as a clip, I would
[37:47] Speaker 7: like you to picture it. It's May nineteen eighty six,
[37:52] Speaker 7: a cold night in Ireland, and you, Elizabeth, are a
[37:55] Speaker 7: raccoon just enjoying the dark and quiet outside the Palladian
[37:58] Speaker 7: mansion sitting there outside the town of Blessington in the
[38:01] Speaker 7: County Wicklow in Ireland. You see, Elizabeth, you live in
[38:04] Speaker 7: the woods outside the Rospborough House. It's a neoclassical home
[38:08] Speaker 7: that stands presently proud against the dark. But the stillness
[38:13] Speaker 7: of the night is shattered when a small pane of
[38:15] Speaker 7: glass in a French window is punched out and lands
[38:17] Speaker 7: on the tile floor of a greenhouse. A gloved hand
[38:20] Speaker 7: pushes into the open pane of the French window and
[38:23] Speaker 7: unlocks it, opening it, a thief steps inside the home.
[38:26] Speaker 7: He's followed by another, and then another. It's gonna be
[38:29] Speaker 7: an interesting night, Elizabeth. Being a raccoon, you stay outside.
[38:33] Speaker 7: You then hear a burglar alarm sound, and you see
[38:36] Speaker 7: the three burglars come racing back out. One stops and eases.
[38:40] Speaker 2: The French window back, shutting. Now fully curious, you PLoP
[38:43] Speaker 2: down and you watch these three burglars. They're wearing hoodies
[38:46] Speaker 2: and balaklava face masks, and you watch them gamble and
[38:50] Speaker 2: run and then hide in the bushes. Curious. You think
[38:52] Speaker 2: they don't make a run for it. Huh. They lay
[38:55] Speaker 2: low and hang out near you, and they hide in
[38:56] Speaker 2: the thicket of bushes. Not too long later, cops from
[39:00] Speaker 2: the Guardo do indeed arrive. They give the place a
[39:03] Speaker 2: quick once over with their flashlights. They know Lord Alfred
[39:07] Speaker 2: and Lady Clementine are not at home. After their cursory check,
[39:10] Speaker 2: the cops decide must be a false alarm. They get
[39:12] Speaker 2: back in their car, drive off Elizabeth. You and presumably
[39:16] Speaker 2: the burglars watch them leave. Once again, it's all still
[39:20] Speaker 2: and quiet. Cut to one hour later, the burglars re
[39:24] Speaker 2: emerge from the bushes, waking you up from your little snooze.
[39:26] Speaker 2: You crane your head to see what the noise is
[39:28] Speaker 2: and you see one of the thieves run out of
[39:29] Speaker 2: the purple light of the coming dawn. A moment later
[39:32] Speaker 2: he comes back. He's now driving a dark green suv.
[39:36] Speaker 2: It's a Mitsubishi Pajero if you're into that sort of thing.
[39:39] Speaker 2: The driver backs it up close to the Rostborough house.
[39:42] Speaker 2: The two other robbers put into place a homemade battered ramp,
[39:46] Speaker 2: and then they step out of the way. The driver
[39:48] Speaker 2: revs the engine of the suv. Then he drops it
[39:50] Speaker 2: in a reverse and floors it. The Mitsubishi Pahio zooms backward.
[39:55] Speaker 2: It races towards a grand set of stairs leading up
[39:58] Speaker 2: to a set of great windows. Watch with delight as
[40:01] Speaker 2: the Mitsubishi Pajaros sort of bounces up the stairs backwards
[40:04] Speaker 2: and then slams into the great windows, crash her through
[40:07] Speaker 2: the shutters cover the window. The wood splinters, then crashes
[40:11] Speaker 2: through the glass of the great windows that shatters with
[40:14] Speaker 2: a most pleasing symphony of tinkling glass yards the Mitsubies.
[40:18] Speaker 2: She comes to a crashing halt inside the home. The
[40:21] Speaker 2: other two burglars are stunned, but they run up to
[40:23] Speaker 2: the house and inside the gang moves fast. They grab
[40:25] Speaker 2: two masterpieces by Rubens, the Portrait of a Dominican Monk
[40:29] Speaker 2: and Venus supplicating Jupiter, and then they goes really shopping.
[40:33] Speaker 2: They cut out seventeen works of art from their frames.
[40:36] Speaker 2: They pile them all on the thick rug and roll
[40:39] Speaker 2: them up, and they ease them back out of the house.
[40:41] Speaker 2: On their way. They also grab some ojsa art and
[40:43] Speaker 2: some priceless little knickknacks just for the kicks. Whole job
[40:47] Speaker 2: last fifty seconds if the burglars load the paintings into
[40:51] Speaker 2: the Mitsubishi Paho and take off back down the grand staircase,
[40:55] Speaker 2: the Mitzi bees. She takes the beating like a box
[40:57] Speaker 2: in the champ the mitsib She drives across a field,
[41:00] Speaker 2: then another, and another before they finally reach a paved
[41:04] Speaker 2: road where the wheels grip the black top and it
[41:07] Speaker 2: zooms off, disappearing into the early morning.
[41:11] Speaker 3: So there you go.
[41:12] Speaker 2: That was how they managed to break in. Just back
[41:16] Speaker 2: at right. I wanted to know so much about the
[41:20] Speaker 2: ram prow because I heard it described a number of times.
[41:22] Speaker 2: I didn't find a picture. I like to find a
[41:24] Speaker 2: picture of it so I can really big. It's imagine
[41:26] Speaker 2: like like almost like railroad ties and stuff like you know,
[41:30] Speaker 2: heavy metal, yeah, exactly, wrapped around some kind of central metal. Yeah,
[41:34] Speaker 2: and then they just run through like a pram or
[41:37] Speaker 2: a prow or like. Yeah. Anyway, thanks to the fact
[41:40] Speaker 2: that there was a loan security guard for this incredible
[41:42] Speaker 2: art collection and the guy was in his seventies and
[41:45] Speaker 2: he was on the other wing of the mansion, the
[41:47] Speaker 2: thieves get away. Now the police, you think they're gonna arrive, right,
[41:51] Speaker 2: they've already been there. But this is a patrol car
[41:54] Speaker 2: issue because the closest station is in the sound of Blessington,
[41:57] Speaker 2: but it's closed at night, so there's just one district
[42:00] Speaker 2: patrol car for the area, and that district patrol car
[42:03] Speaker 2: is center twenty six kilometers away in another town. Right.
[42:06] Speaker 2: The point is, by the time the cops arrived, burglars
[42:08] Speaker 2: or long goal, yeah, Martin Khill gang is able to
[42:11] Speaker 2: escape with roughly thirty million Irish pounds worth of stolen art. Remember,
[42:16] Speaker 2: their original plan was that they would trade the painting
[42:18] Speaker 2: as chits, as bargaining chips with the police. Should they
[42:21] Speaker 2: ever feel that the police are getting close to catching them,
[42:23] Speaker 2: work god forbid, actually arrest them. But then the General
[42:27] Speaker 2: Martin Cahill, he seems, you know, once he has the paintings,
[42:30] Speaker 2: he changes his mind. He's like, I don't know if
[42:31] Speaker 2: we should just give these back to the police so quick.
[42:34] Speaker 2: Yeah that maybe, you know, due to all the heat
[42:36] Speaker 2: they were catching at the time. There's this massive international
[42:40] Speaker 2: manhunt for the burglars of Rustborough House, right, and the
[42:43] Speaker 2: police they're good, Right, they start to like get on
[42:45] Speaker 2: it and they recover a couple of the paintings that
[42:47] Speaker 2: have been sold off, like the early ones. They're just
[42:49] Speaker 2: trying to make some money. They get found in the UK.
[42:51] Speaker 2: Some other paintings get found in Belgium, so at this
[42:54] Speaker 2: point there are other master works of art on the market,
[42:57] Speaker 2: the black market, if you will. The General starts pushing
[43:01] Speaker 2: him out for resale because he's gotten a couple and
[43:02] Speaker 2: they've already been claimed. He's like, I don't care, not
[43:04] Speaker 2: that he's founded us yet. Right, He's like, let's go big.
[43:07] Speaker 2: So cut to Turkey, the country, not the bird. Martin
[43:10] Speaker 2: Khill coordinates with paramilitary operatives in Turkey and he's like,
[43:14] Speaker 2: let's sell this, right, I got some O Jazz Day art.
[43:17] Speaker 2: So he has his crew go over with a a
[43:20] Speaker 2: Metsu miniature, right. And so the trouble was for these
[43:23] Speaker 2: three paramilitary surrogates, other than the fact they didn't really
[43:26] Speaker 2: know what a Metsu miniature was. They show up for
[43:28] Speaker 2: the sale of this Metsu miniature. The Metsu miniature is
[43:33] Speaker 2: basically like a lithograph. It's a tiny little sketch drawing. Right,
[43:38] Speaker 2: So I'm framed.
[43:39] Speaker 3: I'm like these Irish dudes, I don't know what this exactly.
[43:42] Speaker 2: So they just grabbedal like this has got to be
[43:43] Speaker 2: worth something. To look at that gilded frame. It's tiny,
[43:47] Speaker 2: it must be worth something. If it's on the walls here,
[43:49] Speaker 2: so they're trying to like push this thing, like, look,
[43:50] Speaker 2: it's tiny. They can put it on a table and
[43:52] Speaker 2: show it to someone.
[43:53] Speaker 3: Right.
[43:54] Speaker 2: So, of course these guys who they meet are actually
[43:57] Speaker 2: undercover Turkish police. They are so out of their element,
[44:00] Speaker 2: may get caught arrested. So so much for that route.
[44:02] Speaker 2: Luckily for the General it doesn't trace back to him really.
[44:06] Speaker 2: Now by this point though, twelve of the nineteen stolen
[44:08] Speaker 2: paintings have been recovered by the police. They are just
[44:10] Speaker 2: catching up by all of them, but they cannot manage
[44:13] Speaker 2: to get back to k Hill. Also, they catch though
[44:15] Speaker 2: obviously some of the ogs the arts. Now the police says,
[44:18] Speaker 2: as they said, they're trying depended on the General, but
[44:21] Speaker 2: they cannot find They can't find anyone who'll rat him out,
[44:24] Speaker 2: Like no one will turn on this guy. That may
[44:27] Speaker 2: be because out of like fear, not of him per se.
[44:29] Speaker 2: But if his IRA associates, everyone knows he's down with
[44:33] Speaker 2: the Iras. They're like, oh, I don't even know that guy, right,
[44:36] Speaker 2: So the guard A detectives they're stubborn elizabe but they're like,
[44:38] Speaker 2: well we love to catch them ourselves. Yeah, So they
[44:40] Speaker 2: keep Martin Cahill under constant, round the clock surveillance eyes
[44:45] Speaker 2: always on him, right, just people at his house, people
[44:48] Speaker 2: at his known like places of visiting. They even give
[44:50] Speaker 2: this dude a code name. They start calling him Tango one, right, yeah, yeah,
[44:54] Speaker 2: And they also call their surveillance team the Tango Squad.
[44:57] Speaker 2: Oh exactly, that a great name for a bar tribute team,
[45:01] Speaker 2: the Tango Squad. He's so confused, like, what's going on anyway?
[45:05] Speaker 2: The police they believe they keep the screws on Tango one.
[45:08] Speaker 2: He'll eventually make a mistake and they'll be there to
[45:10] Speaker 2: catch them. Now, the police operation and their Tango Squad,
[45:14] Speaker 2: they catch the attention of the local Irish media. They're like,
[45:16] Speaker 2: what's going on with the Tango Squad? Right? So a
[45:19] Speaker 2: reporter for urte this dude, Brendan O'Brien. He goes and
[45:22] Speaker 2: he tracks down the general himself. He's like, I'll go
[45:24] Speaker 2: get to the story. And he finds him coming out
[45:26] Speaker 2: of a business right, and the reporter asks him on
[45:28] Speaker 2: camera if he has the stolen artwork from the Rustborough House.
[45:32] Speaker 2: Just as you expect, Oh you caught me, you got
[45:37] Speaker 2: the camera of true. So Martin Cahill tells the reporter
[45:41] Speaker 2: that he's actually a private detective. You see. He's like, yeah,
[45:43] Speaker 2: and he's and he's working on the case. Yeah, he
[45:46] Speaker 2: and his mate are on it. And in fact, at
[45:48] Speaker 2: the moment he's quote on standby with Martin Foley to
[45:52] Speaker 2: get those paintings back, right, So Elizabeth, remember that name,
[45:55] Speaker 2: Martin Foley. More on him later. Now. One of the
[45:58] Speaker 2: Tango Squad detectives, Jerio Caro, Right, he works with surveillance
[46:02] Speaker 2: detail on Khill. He studies his prey, he studies his motivations,
[46:06] Speaker 2: and he comes to the conclusion that the General hated
[46:09] Speaker 2: the State of Ireland because of what happened to him
[46:11] Speaker 2: as a child in reform school, because he'd been beaten
[46:14] Speaker 2: apparently in reform school and abused. And so he decides
[46:17] Speaker 2: that this is quote carrying out a spectacular, was his revenge.
[46:21] Speaker 2: All right, I'm into that. And that's the thing that
[46:23] Speaker 2: the cops hated was that the General had gotten away
[46:25] Speaker 2: with his criminal spectacular. He got his revenge. So he's like,
[46:29] Speaker 2: we can't have that. So Elizabeth, you and I we
[46:32] Speaker 2: often cover. The state has like an advantage in crime.
[46:36] Speaker 2: They've got more people, more patients, more resources, more money
[46:40] Speaker 2: than any criminals can muster other than like the cartels.
[46:43] Speaker 2: So the guard, the detectives, they keep that pressure on him.
[46:46] Speaker 2: They know that they have the advantage, like, look, we're
[46:48] Speaker 2: the casino, you're the gambler. Enough time, we will take you.
[46:52] Speaker 2: So the general he doesn't like this. He doesn't like
[46:53] Speaker 2: being surveiled all night. He knows that what they're doing
[46:56] Speaker 2: is going to win, like a boa constructor crushing him.
[46:58] Speaker 2: So he decides he's going to start breaking out right,
[47:00] Speaker 2: he can't have all this surveillance. He's getting in the
[47:02] Speaker 2: way of him doing his scores. So he starts to
[47:04] Speaker 2: leave the house, but then they follow him. He can't
[47:06] Speaker 2: go anywhere without a police tail, so this cat and
[47:08] Speaker 2: mouse game. Eventually he's like, okay, I'm at to bring
[47:11] Speaker 2: in my wife. That's the only way of getting out
[47:13] Speaker 2: of the house. So he has his wife try to
[47:14] Speaker 2: drive him. He'll lean back in the seat. Oh right,
[47:17] Speaker 2: cops r onto that one. He's like, Okay, what if
[47:19] Speaker 2: I hide in the trunk of the car, you drive
[47:21] Speaker 2: to the grocery store and then I'll get out at
[47:23] Speaker 2: the grocery store. That doesn't work, so he's like, how
[47:26] Speaker 2: am I going to do this eventually. Apparently one day
[47:28] Speaker 2: he's got like some business to handle, so he tries
[47:30] Speaker 2: like a speeding escape. So what he does is he
[47:33] Speaker 2: runs it out, hops on his Harley, fires it up,
[47:35] Speaker 2: and roars off into traffic as fast as he can.
[47:38] Speaker 2: It works, He's able to shake his surveillance Harley. I
[47:41] Speaker 2: don't know how. It's one of his rare successes to
[47:44] Speaker 2: tango won though. Is getting frustrated Elizabeth right cause, But ultimately,
[47:48] Speaker 2: I hate to mislead you, none of that matters, because
[47:50] Speaker 2: eventually his own criminality becomes his undoing, not the police,
[47:54] Speaker 2: the general. He reaches out to the Ulster Volunteer Force
[47:57] Speaker 2: to sell off the remaining.
[47:59] Speaker 3: Paintings he has hidden.
[48:02] Speaker 2: You were right on it. That was a mistake a
[48:04] Speaker 2: huge mistake. And you know why the IRA associated gangster
[48:08] Speaker 2: has reached out to their enemy to do business with
[48:10] Speaker 2: them and save his own skin.
[48:12] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so.
[48:12] Speaker 2: That move fails him. The IRA catches up to him
[48:15] Speaker 2: and they're like, Martin, here you have some artwork for sale.
[48:18] Speaker 2: So Elizabeth, now what would come next would be our
[48:21] Speaker 2: one percent? So I won't get into that, but you
[48:24] Speaker 2: get the idea. Interestingly, Martin Cahill was the very last
[48:28] Speaker 2: victim of IRA violence before they signed the Good Friday
[48:31] Speaker 2: Peace Treaty in nineteen ninety eight. He was their last.
[48:35] Speaker 2: So now Elizabeth the next time the Rustboro House gets robbed. Yeah, hey,
[48:40] Speaker 2: that's right. The Rustboro House is robbed for a third time.
[48:45] Speaker 2: The year is two thousand and one. The third robber
[48:47] Speaker 2: also has a legendary gnom do crime. His government name
[48:51] Speaker 2: Martin Foley, his street name the Viper.
[48:54] Speaker 3: The Viper.
[48:55] Speaker 2: So remember I told you remember that name? Yeah, he
[48:57] Speaker 2: comes back into it. I'd give you a sense of
[48:59] Speaker 2: this guy, Martin Foley. He looks like Bill the Butcher
[49:03] Speaker 2: from gangs in New York with the handle mustache and
[49:06] Speaker 2: they got it turned up at the ends. He has
[49:08] Speaker 2: that same kind of greasy look, but also like Bill
[49:10] Speaker 2: the Butcher. Multiple people have tried to kill this man. Okay,
[49:13] Speaker 2: the Viper has survived six attempts on his life.
[49:16] Speaker 3: Oh wow.
[49:17] Speaker 2: He's also one of Martin Cahill's most loyal captains from
[49:20] Speaker 2: his old street gang. Interesting, so he'd been in the
[49:23] Speaker 2: crew back in the day. He was part of the
[49:25] Speaker 2: original robbery with the General, and then he'd also been
[49:28] Speaker 2: under surveillance back then because he was part of the
[49:30] Speaker 2: original Thrill Too. Remember he said, me and Martin we
[49:32] Speaker 2: were gonna we're on the case. Well, he was his
[49:34] Speaker 2: right hand right, so we had tango too. The Viper
[49:37] Speaker 2: when he was Tango too, got heated just like the General,
[49:41] Speaker 2: but he was even more of like a I have
[49:43] Speaker 2: no impulse control kind of criminal. So he punched a cop.
[49:46] Speaker 2: He broke the CoP's jaws. Oh god, yeah, he came
[49:50] Speaker 2: out of his house threatening another cop, but not just
[49:52] Speaker 2: like with his fist. He had a loaded crossbow. Across
[49:56] Speaker 2: load and crossbows. I don't even know. I love the
[50:01] Speaker 2: UK and Irish crime because it's always like and then
[50:03] Speaker 2: he came out naked with a crossbossh. So cut to
[50:08] Speaker 2: years later, you know, because I want to get to
[50:10] Speaker 2: the revenge he wants to get for his fallen boss,
[50:13] Speaker 2: which is kind of odd because I don't know why
[50:16] Speaker 2: he's so loyal to Martin Khill. Because the Viper he
[50:18] Speaker 2: gets locked up for breaking that CoP's jaw. He ends
[50:21] Speaker 2: up doing a couple of years, and his old buddy
[50:23] Speaker 2: Martin Cahill thinks that he might be an informer now,
[50:27] Speaker 2: so he puts out a jail house hit on the Viper,
[50:30] Speaker 2: which was ultimately unsuccessful and really strained their friendship. But
[50:35] Speaker 2: he survived, and so when he gets out, he wants
[50:37] Speaker 2: to get revenge for Martin getting popped. Right, So the
[50:40] Speaker 2: Viper goes back and he hits the Rustborough House again.
[50:44] Speaker 2: Or perhaps he just knew it was an easy score,
[50:47] Speaker 2: and either way he wanted some hits of his own.
[50:49] Speaker 2: But whatever, he goes back Elizabeth of June of two
[50:52] Speaker 2: thousand and one. The gang busts into the palatial home,
[50:55] Speaker 2: the one with terrible security, and they managed to steal
[50:58] Speaker 2: just two master works. One is Aainsborough's painting Madame Baccelli.
[51:02] Speaker 2: The other painting is Beloto's View of Florence. Yes, it's
[51:05] Speaker 2: really nice paintings. Now side note, this is the third
[51:08] Speaker 2: time these two exact paintings have been stolen. They've been
[51:11] Speaker 2: involved in all the prior recoveries and they've been recovered
[51:15] Speaker 2: and stolen again.
[51:16] Speaker 3: Oh my god, the adventures, the things those paintings have seen.
[51:19] Speaker 2: I'm telling you a View of Florence, view of the
[51:21] Speaker 2: underside of London and possibly Istanbul. Anyway, you see, the
[51:26] Speaker 2: viper he wants these paintings for himself, So what does
[51:28] Speaker 2: he do oh just for his house, just well just
[51:30] Speaker 2: he wants them. He just wants to own them, hold them,
[51:33] Speaker 2: have them, being able to pet them and look at people.
[51:35] Speaker 2: And these are minds. So he steals them because that's
[51:38] Speaker 2: what he can't buy them. So this criminal mastermind, he
[51:40] Speaker 2: has the exact same plan as Rose Dugdale and his man,
[51:43] Speaker 2: the General Martin Cahill. The viper plans to trade these
[51:46] Speaker 2: famous paintings for freedom because he's also under surveillance throughout
[51:50] Speaker 2: his criminal career. So back to Detective Jerry O'Carroll, he
[51:55] Speaker 2: confessed that such trades are sometimes made by the police
[51:58] Speaker 2: where they will do this. And he's now a retired
[52:00] Speaker 2: detective so he's speaking a little more freely. He said,
[52:03] Speaker 2: and I quote dales are done all the time. Let's
[52:06] Speaker 2: be honest about it. The baked paintings are stolen for
[52:08] Speaker 2: bargaining chips. The thieves know that they can't offload them,
[52:11] Speaker 2: but when they are caught with drugs or facing charges
[52:13] Speaker 2: an armed robbery, they can use the paintings for bartarin
[52:16] Speaker 2: to Irish form of plea bargaining. I gotta say the
[52:20] Speaker 2: Irish are so cool, even if I can't do their
[52:22] Speaker 2: accent not only do they have their own form of exit,
[52:25] Speaker 2: the Irish good Bye, they also have their own form
[52:27] Speaker 2: of plea bargaining, the Irish art trade to sew into this.
[52:31] Speaker 2: So at this point another man hunt ensues the guard Ay,
[52:34] Speaker 2: they stay on the trail of the viper. Yeah, but
[52:36] Speaker 2: they do not catch him. But he does make contact
[52:40] Speaker 2: is he wants to trade the paintings, so the mastermind
[52:42] Speaker 2: he offers the cops that stolen artwork in exchange for
[52:44] Speaker 2: his freedom. The guard a listen, They consider it, and
[52:48] Speaker 2: they manage to recover a painting from him after their communication.
[52:51] Speaker 2: But it isn't one of the paintings the viper's stole. Instead,
[52:54] Speaker 2: it's a Ruben's master work that the General Martin K.
[52:58] Speaker 2: Hill stole in the original, one of the unrecovered artworks.
[53:01] Speaker 2: He's like, that's right here, you go, just kind of
[53:03] Speaker 2: put it in their face. So some cop watchers assume
[53:06] Speaker 2: that it was the viper who told the police where
[53:08] Speaker 2: to find his former bosses stolen artwork because of this right,
[53:11] Speaker 2: that it was part of his deal for his freedom,
[53:14] Speaker 2: because you know, you obviously you can't keep the paintings,
[53:17] Speaker 2: but I wish I could tell you if he actually,
[53:19] Speaker 2: you know what he did with these stolen paintings, but
[53:21] Speaker 2: I don't know because they never charged him. He was
[53:23] Speaker 2: the primary suspect for two robberies of the Rustban House,
[53:27] Speaker 2: and none other time does he get busted for it.
[53:29] Speaker 2: The Viper aka Martin Foley, he manages to stay out.
[53:33] Speaker 2: He gets busted on other crimes, but not on the rusper. Yeah,
[53:36] Speaker 2: but this is obviously not the end of his legendary
[53:38] Speaker 2: criming career, because two years later, at his wife's funeral,
[53:42] Speaker 2: a newspaper snaps a photo of this elusive the viper. Yeah,
[53:45] Speaker 2: the invasion of privacy causes the viper, the man with
[53:48] Speaker 2: absolutely no impulse control, to place a bomb under the
[53:51] Speaker 2: car of the photo journalist told me, you get it right,
[53:56] Speaker 2: But once again, the bomb was a phony. It was
[53:58] Speaker 2: just to scare the guy, a joke. I guess. She's like, oh, yeah,
[54:01] Speaker 2: the clock doesn't even work whatever. So later he has
[54:05] Speaker 2: to go back to court, you know, and get this Elizabeth.
[54:07] Speaker 2: He may or may not have been selling pot at
[54:09] Speaker 2: the time, but he went to court to sue the
[54:12] Speaker 2: press and to stop media coverage of him. They were
[54:15] Speaker 2: reporting that he was a police informer who paid protection
[54:18] Speaker 2: money to the IRA to sell pot and he's like,
[54:22] Speaker 2: stop it with the pot right bridge. He said that
[54:26] Speaker 2: these stories are putting his life at risk. I think
[54:28] Speaker 2: it's the idea that he was selling during protection money. Anyway.
[54:31] Speaker 2: In two thousand and eight, the Viper survives another attempt
[54:34] Speaker 2: on his life. He gets shot multiple times while standing
[54:37] Speaker 2: outside of a health and fitness club in South Dublin.
[54:39] Speaker 2: Now at present, best I can tell you he is
[54:41] Speaker 2: still alive, all right, so you know respect. And he's
[54:45] Speaker 2: working in the debt collection business.
[54:47] Speaker 3: Oh that's terrifying.
[54:50] Speaker 2: The name of his business is emblazoned on his company van.
[54:53] Speaker 2: On the side it reads the Viper.
[54:58] Speaker 3: Oh my god, I will give people to pay it.
[55:00] Speaker 2: So there's a what's a ridiculous takeaway?
[55:01] Speaker 3: Here? A ridiculous takeaway? You can avoid all of this
[55:04] Speaker 3: trouble by not owning a you know, palace somewhere in Europe. Yes,
[55:10] Speaker 3: that is I mean, that's why I've never had this trouble.
[55:13] Speaker 2: That is true. You've never had an IRA related gangster
[55:16] Speaker 2: come into your home two times?
[55:18] Speaker 3: No to steal priceless paintings, now, saren, Yes, what's your
[55:22] Speaker 3: ridiculous takeaway?
[55:23] Speaker 2: Well, I don't I don't have one. I never expect
[55:25] Speaker 2: you to.
[55:25] Speaker 3: Add, well, we told the whole story. There you go.
[55:27] Speaker 2: No, actually I do have one. To sit back down.
[55:30] Speaker 2: I think that Rose Dugdale and the Mitford sisters are
[55:33] Speaker 2: just these ridiculous characters because they're so disconnected from the
[55:36] Speaker 2: world that they then turn it into like this place
[55:38] Speaker 2: of play, but with the most serious and meaningful things.
[55:41] Speaker 2: Where's the bleeding people? I want to go play there,
[55:44] Speaker 2: which I find is really interesting. And this is common
[55:46] Speaker 2: for ultra wealthy, violently rich people, as you would put it,
[55:50] Speaker 2: to do that to like not see a real thing
[55:53] Speaker 2: is real.
[55:53] Speaker 3: They're moving at a different level, way above the rest
[55:56] Speaker 3: of us, And it's like you said that they're playing
[55:58] Speaker 3: at it and we're placed things and like the big
[56:02] Speaker 3: things that'll you know, the events and decisions that will
[56:05] Speaker 3: totally change our lives.
[56:08] Speaker 2: For good or for for a generation or two.
[56:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, don't impact them at all. And the crazy it's
[56:14] Speaker 3: crazy to think about that.
[56:16] Speaker 2: Well, it's like having pets. Yeah, you know what I mean.
[56:19] Speaker 2: You guys both need food and water and a home,
[56:20] Speaker 2: shelter and a lot of similar things. Yeah, but their
[56:23] Speaker 2: control of resources and their control of manipulation of reality
[56:26] Speaker 2: and like being able to like, oh I can just
[56:27] Speaker 2: walk away. I'll just let this pet die and I'll
[56:29] Speaker 2: go get a new pet. You know, it's like that's there,
[56:30] Speaker 2: like pets exactly. There you go, shout out to Perry
[56:34] Speaker 2: Farrell or not well for the song, I mean not
[56:37] Speaker 2: as a person. I'm like to see all we get
[56:40] Speaker 2: to play. How about this shout out to Porno for
[56:42] Speaker 2: pyros and there we go, Elizabeth, should we declared the
[56:45] Speaker 2: air with the talking about please could you hit us
[56:48] Speaker 2: up at one?
[56:51] Speaker 5: Oh my god, I like, hi, Saron, Elizabeth, Dave interns.
[57:07] Speaker 6: I heard the episode where you referenced the guy who
[57:11] Speaker 6: called emergency services for his love dull wife. I just
[57:15] Speaker 6: wanted to know if you wanted to hear something even
[57:17] Speaker 6: more ridiculous.
[57:18] Speaker 2: Oh hell, like the.
[57:19] Speaker 6: Guy who was online questioning the paternity of his love
[57:23] Speaker 6: doll children that he bought himself and also gave face
[57:29] Speaker 6: tattoos too.
[57:31] Speaker 3: Then he gave face tattoosdays.
[57:34] Speaker 2: Be able to identify them, Elizabeth, those are hie with
[57:36] Speaker 2: the face tattoos.
[57:37] Speaker 3: Oh my god, they didn't have to get like parental
[57:40] Speaker 3: permission slip signed. What was it made out of? Like sharpie? Anyway?
[57:45] Speaker 3: That's ridiculous and that's amazing.
[57:47] Speaker 2: Thank you for that one. As always, you can tell
[57:49] Speaker 2: we love your talkback. So go to the I heard
[57:51] Speaker 2: app downloaded, leave a talk back. Maybe you'll hear your
[57:53] Speaker 2: voice here and you can find us online.
[57:56] Speaker 8: A ridiculous crime on social media, A bunch of them,
[57:58] Speaker 8: some of them, not all of them. We also have
[57:59] Speaker 8: our website, Ridiculous Crime dot com. Go there, check it out.
[58:02] Speaker 8: We got a bunch of new merch for y'all. Great designs,
[58:05] Speaker 8: the beautiful designs, Award winning designs.
[58:07] Speaker 2: You'll love them.
[58:07] Speaker 3: M hmm.
[58:08] Speaker 2: And emails if you like a Ridiculous Crime at gmail
[58:11] Speaker 2: dot com. As always, start the email dear producer Dave.
[58:15] Speaker 2: So there you go, Thanks for listening. We will catch
[58:18] Speaker 2: you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton
[58:26] Speaker 2: and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Dave the Cobra Coustin,
[58:31] Speaker 2: and starring Annelie Rutgers. Judith. Research is by Marisa the
[58:34] Speaker 2: Mamba Brown and Andrea the Anaconda Song Sharpened Hear Our
[58:39] Speaker 2: theme song is by Thomas the Ball Python Lee and
[58:43] Speaker 2: Travis the Emoji Skinned Boa Dutton. The host wardrobe provided
[58:48] Speaker 2: by Botany five hundred guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot
[58:51] Speaker 2: and mister Andre. Executive producers are Ben the Kingsnake Bowlin
[58:56] Speaker 2: and Noel the Watermocasin Brown.
[59:04] Speaker 3: Ridicous Crime Say It One More Time Ridiquious Crime.
[59:11] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
[59:14] Speaker 1: from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
[59:17] Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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