The Greatest Unsolved Heist in Irish History

atlasobscura.com

67 points·Amorymeltzer··6 comments

Firstly, no it isn't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Bank_robbery

Secondly, "The first iteration of Sinn Fein was founded in 1905" welllll... i mean, they had that name but it would be more accurate to say that was the birth of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael (the two main distributers of dublin property in ireland today)

Thirdly, like the IRA pension fund alluded to above, 'even dogs on the street know', 'say nothing' and above all 'keep your head down' and a million other colloquillisms.

I thought the racehorse would have been the biggest one

I think there's a case for it: Shergar was valued around £10 million in 1981 [0] which would have been equivalent to around £25 million in 2004, very close to the £26.5 million given for the Northern Bank robbery, and either way far ahead of the few million in today's money the article claims for the jewel heist.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shergar [1] https://www.in2013dollars.com/uk/inflation/1981?endYear=2004...

A particularly interesting story and well presented.

Also, this was my first time hearing that JP Morgan was suspected of being involved in the theft of the Mona Lisa.

Some of the people involved were believed to be sources of inspiration for some of the writings of Oscar Wilde and -- according to the article -- Vicious Circle claims that the 1908 Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans” was a thinly veiled riff on the theft of the Irish Crown Jewels.

He seems to have got his just desserts at the end.

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