Daily Photo – Dublin Castle
In the early summer of 1907, when it was announced that King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of Britain would be calling by Dublin Castle the following month to pop in for a visit, a cup of tea, and to tap Lord Castletown on each shoulder with a sword, everyone got very excited. Clearly, there was much to-do in readiness for the four-day royal visit and naturally, everyone wanted to put their best foot forward and present a good showing.
The visit meant, among other things, that the Irish Crown Jewels would be required for the King to admire and show off a little during the ceremony. Normally, they were kept under lock and key in a steel safe located within the Bedford Tower at Dublin Castle and a man named Sir Arthur Vicars was entrusted with that key.
Of course, before the King laid eyes on the regalia, just like the household silverware, it required a bit of a touch-up, a clean and polish so it would look its best for the King’s arrival. Yet, as the date neared and the time came to prepare the royal jewellery, the safe was unlocked, opened, and to everyone’s surprise, the jewels were gone!
Which really wasn’t much of a surprise at all, as Sir Arthur was perhaps not the best man for the job.
The problem was that Sir Arthur had three notable character flaws. Firstly, he wasn’t particularly nice to those who worked beneath him. Second, he was very fond of a drink, extremely fond, it seems. Thirdly, he had a habit of losing his keys. As far as character flaws go, it was the perfect trifecta: condescension, inebriation, and forgetfulness. Something his friends and co-workers took full advantage of.
It seems it was an open secret that Sir Arthur would regularly wake from a stupor to find his drinking companions playing practical jokes on him, frequently using his own safe keys as props for their late-night amusement. So, when the safe was found empty, with a distinct lack of evidence for detectives to go on, all eyes naturally turned to Sir Arthur. After all, the thieves had simply walked up and turned a key.
Naturally, the King was furious and Sir Arthur was immediately sacked, his career ruined. The investigation that followed read like a Victorian melodrama. Accusations flew wildly. High-society aristocrats were accused, as were Dublin’s artistic bohemians. There were even whispers of a secret society operating right under everyone’s noses.
Yet the jewels were never found and the mystery remains unsolved, to this very day, more than a century later. No one is any the wiser and the disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels remains one of history’s most enduring mysteries.
