Road Trip

The dramatic IRA art heist at Tarrymore House is directly modeled on a real-life event that captured international attention, the 1974 robbery at Russborough House in County Wicklow, Ireland. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was a militant organization that fought against Britian’s control of Northen Ireland and sought the reunification of Ireland. On April 26, 1974, a gang led by Bridget Rose Dugdale, an English debutante turned IRA member, stole 19 masterpieces “worth roughly £8 million,” including works by Goya, Rubens, and Vermeer (Byrne, Laura and David Mac Redmond. “Russborough Heist, 50 Years On.” The Journal, 26 Apr. 2024). The novel mirrors the historical heist’s key details, which Jamie recounts to Maeve: The ringleader, Starr McGahee, is based on Dugdale, who also came from a wealthy English family and was radicalized at university. The novel’s account of the robbery, where a woman feigning a French accent and car trouble gains entry for armed accomplices, is precisely how the real heist began. The thieves’ demand for the release of IRA prisoners in exchange for the art also parallels the real event: Dugdale’s gang sought the release of Dolours and Marian Price, two “sisters who were jailed for life on explosives charges and were on hunger strike in London’s Brixton jail” (Carey, Mairead. “An Artful Dodge.” TIME, 7 Dec. 2002). The gang was apprehended, and the paintings were found in a house that Dugdale had rented and in the trunk of a car that she’d borrowed. After serving 11 years in prison, Dugdale worked with a support group for former prisoners in Dublin. This factual grounding lends authenticity to the fictional narrative of Tarrymore, showing how the political turmoil of “the Troubles” directly impacted even the most insulated aristocratic families. By fictionalizing a historical crime, the novel explores how personal histories become entangled with larger political conflicts.