On the morning of Saturday 6 July 1907, a cleaning lady called Mary Farrell, working at Dublin Castle, was going about her duties and had reached the library when she noticed that the door was unlocked. She had found the same situation three days before that but no action had been taken by Sir Arthur Vicars when it was reported. Vicars was the Ulster King of Arms and he was responsible not merely for the security of the library and rooms around, but for something far more important – the Insignia of the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick, otherwise known as the Irish ‘Crown Jewels’.
These were in a safe in the library because when the safe had been taken to the Castle from a bank vault, in order to be kept at the Office of Arms, it was found that the safe was too large to be taken in, so it was placed in the library of the Bedford Tower. Not only was it a solid safe, it was also in a position where soldiers and police officers would always be in close proximity, so it must have seemed a secure place to store such valuables. How wrong could the men responsible have been – because later on after the cleaner made the second report on the sixth of the month, William Stivey, who was an assistant to Vicars, went to the safe and found that it was unlocked and that the jewels had gone.
The jewels were the insignia of a group formed by George III in 1783, as an Irish form of the famous Scottish Order of the Thistle. The jewels had been made in London by a company called Rundell and Bridge and the glory of the collection comprised two items: a star and badge of the Order of St Patrick. The statutes and rules of the order had only recently been revised – just two years previously – and the Office of Arms had been moved to the Castle in that year. There was a whole panoply of officers and honorary members entrusted with the safety of the jewels, including the Dublin Herald Frank Shackleton, who was the brother of the famous explorer. He became a suspect, because clearly the valuables had been stolen by someone with access to a key, and he lodged with Vicars at his home in Clonskeagh Road.