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Michael Moynihan: Louvre heist to Rebel raid — would it fly on the streets of Cork?

Watch out Cork City Library! Mr Mayfield, Mr Near But Not Quite Douglas, Mr Northern Carrigaline and the gang are coming for Rory Gallagher

Thu, 30 Oct, 2025 - 01:00

Michael Moynihan

Can we pause for a moment and thank the people who stole some jewellery from a museum in Paris last week?

The horror in the news is so unrelenting it’s hardly an accident this story is getting so much attention. I don’t often take the time to express my gratitude to apparent criminals, but I welcome the way this raid has captured the attention of the world, not least because of its snappy nickname.

How can you not like something that every media outlet on the planet is calling the Louvre heist?

The facts: on October 19 four men pulled up in a stolen furniture removal truck outside the Louvre, which is the world’s most-visited museum, at about half nine in the morning. The truck was fitted with an extending ladder and lift which two of them, clad in hi-vis gear, used to access a first-floor gallery.

They smashed a window and used cutters to open display cases in the gallery before descending in the lift and escaping on motorbikes driven by their two accomplices.

The entire adventure lasted less than seven minutes. The two thieves spent just under four minutes in the Louvre itself.

The takings include a sapphire diadem, necklace and an earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and though they dropped a diamond and emerald-studded crown during the getaway, investigators said the items taken were worth about €90 million, but that was “nothing compared to their historical value”.

Sorry, did I say takings? That is a haul, because this is definitely a heist.

Look at the constituent elements. A glamorous location in one of the most beautiful cities on earth. Nothing as vulgar as a cash grab or armed robbery involved, but rather a well-researched raid for items of immense monetary value, which also happen to be beautiful.

The basket lift used by thieves at the Louvre. Picture: AP/Alexander Turnbull

The thieves worked quickly and efficiently, obviously conscious of time constraints, but still dropped a significant item as they made their escape: a clue? No one appears to have been harmed as the crime was committed, so observers can enjoy the brouhaha without feeling guilty.

Dozens of Paris’s top investigators are on the case — in fact, there was a brief flurry of overheated speculation that a dapper Frenchman pictured at the scene was a detective assigned to the case (since revealed to be untrue, alas).

On reflection, is this a heist or the work of a bunch of film students trying to recreate Ocean’s 11, or Topkapi, or The Thomas Crown Affair (either the Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan version)?

It’s so cinematic that I feel no shame in wondering just how the crew was assembled for this heist, who the wheelman was, whether it was the ‘last job’ for anyone on the crew, what the split was, whether the rallying point was ever reached. ..

I realised I’d developed a bit of a problem when I left my coffee go cold the other morning because I was mulling over another narrative development reminiscent of a breezy 60s movie caper.

The German firm Böcker, which makes the extending ladder and lift used in the heist rushed out an ad within hours of the news breaking (tagline: “When you need to move fast”).

Some people were admiring the company’s quick-thinking marketing department. I was focused on other pressing matters.

Was this firm involved in the caper? Was it an inside job?

And then the most pressing question.

Could it happen here?

Could Cork host a daring yet stylish heist, one in which priceless treasures are purloined by a gang of oddball characters whose personality clashes mask a mutual respect thrown into sharp focus by some Elmore Leonard-style quips?

It’s tricky. We don’t appear to have too many priceless treasures on hand at the moment, never mind a municipal facility in which to house them.

'Couldn’t your motley crew steal a couple of Rory Gallagher’s bits — handwritten lyrics and so on — from the City Library?' one of my research assistants said. Picture: Denis Minihane

The Crawford is closed, for instance, and will remain closed for a while yet. There might be a few interesting scenes to be wrung out of a rooftop raid on the Masonic Hall, but the fact it’s half-hidden away by the ongoing works on Bishop Lucey Park make it a far from alluring prospect.

I was stumped, frankly, until one of my research assistants came up with something.

"Couldn’t your motley crew steal a couple of Rory Gallagher’s bits — handwritten lyrics and so on — from the City Library?" Alright. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Who’s in the crew for this heist?

We need a driver — sorry, a wheelman — who’ll have to be from the city; I don’t want anyone from the county asking why we can’t take a right from Washington Street up North Main Street.

I need two large beasts for crowd control, basically telling anyone on site to look the other way.

If it was a bank you could say ‘we’re here for the bank’s money, not yours’ but that wouldn’t be a great approach in this context (‘We’re here for the Harry Potters and the Maeve Binchys, not for your selections’).

A ringleader. A tech guy. And some kind of loose cannon, a chap none of the others really trust, but by now we’re up to half a dozen at least.

Nicknames would be good, then. Instead of Mr White, Mr Blue, Mr Green, we could have Mr Mayfield, Mr Near But Not Quite Douglas, Mr Northern Carrigaline.

The approach?

In and out, no violence, just grab and go like our role models in Paris. A couple of those bucks had hi-vis gear on, and I like the idea of a gang being dressed in the same way, though not in uniforms. Dressing to type, but plausibly. . . what if the half-dozen of them had quarter-zip fleeces, Levis, and vintage Adidas Gazelles, pretending to be a stag group from Essex?

(‘In a library? On a stag weekend?’ — research assistant.) Fair enough. Black North Face jacket, grey joggers, white New Balance. Blend in with hundreds of other young fellas roaming the city.

How would they get away if the traffic is true to form on the Grand Parade (ie gridlock)?

Hm. An alarm goes off at the library and every garda in Cork will be bearing down on the centre of the city, eager to recover all four handwritten pages of 'Tattoo’d Lady'.

Could the gang be truly audacious and jump aboard the 215? No one is going to expect sophisticated international thieves to flash the Leap Cards and make their escape, though if you’re a devotee of The Italian Job (original version) you might get a bit worried as the bus starts climbing around Killeens.

It could happen here. I am not condoning an outbreak of sophisticated and essentially victimless crime, but if Cork is to take its rightful place among the great cities of the world, what would be a better marker of our eminence?

Better be quick before Dublin organises a heist from the National Gallery, mind.