Three-man gang steals £3m paintings

Gardai are today investigating the theft of two paintings valued at a total of £3m from Russborough House, Co Wicklow.

A three-man masked gang, one believed to be armed, ram-raided their way into a building with a jeep-style vehicle at lunchtime and stole the two works from a collection on show there.

No one was hurt in the incident.

The raiders escaped in a car which was later found burned-out in a nearby car park.

A major search was later launched for the gang.

The stolen paintings were by Gainsborough and Belotto and sources said their combined estimated worth was at least £3m.

The robbery took place less than one hour ago, at about 12.30pm.

Russborough House, near the Co Wicklow village of Blessington, has been the scene of two other major Irish art thefts.

In 1974, an IRA gang which included British heiress Dr Rose Dugdale stole 19 paintings - then valued at £8m - from Russborough, then the home of former Conservative MP Sir Alfred Beit, a member of the de Beers diamond family, and his wife.

The couple were bound and gagged during the raid.

The pictures were later found in Co Cork.

Rose Dugdale and others involved in the raid were afterwards jailed for the robbery.

In 1986, a 13-member gang headed by Dublin criminal boss Martin Cahill - known as The General and later shot dead by the IRA as he sat in his car in Dublin - stole 18 works, including some of those taken and recovered in the earlier incident.

The paintings that were taken included works by Vermeer, Metsu, Goya, Gainsborough and Rubens.

They turned up over a period of years in a number of locations, including London and Belgium, after apparently unsuccessful attempts to sell them.

The Gainsborough stolen today was also taken in both the previous raids.

Garda Chief Superintendent Sean Feely said of the latest theft: "Two people arrived in a jeep and one in a Volkswagen Golf.

"The jeep was driven up the steps of Russborough House and rammed the front door. Two paintings - Madame Paccelli, by Gainsborough and Scene of Florence by Belotto - are both pretty valuable.

"The thieves tried to burn the jeep outside the house and left in the car, which they also later burned. The gang then tried to hijack another car outside the gates of the house."

The Beit art collection at the centre of the series of raids was given to the Irish nation some years ago.