The Great Dublin Castle Mystery of 1907
On 6 July 1907, Dublin Castle discovered that it had a problem.
A very large problem.
The ceremonial jewels belonging to the Order of St Patrick, supposedly secured inside a safe in the heart of the administrative headquarters of British government in Ireland, had disappeared.
There was no smashed safe.
No broken lock.
No masked burglar had been seen climbing through a window.
Nobody even knew precisely when the jewels had been stolen.
And King Edward VII was due to arrive in Ireland only days later.
It was an almost perfect recipe for scandal.
The jewels have never been recovered.
No one has ever been convicted of stealing them.
More than a century later, we still do not know with certainty who took the so-called Irish Crown Jewels.
But there were suspects.
And one name has stubbornly refused to disappear:
Francis Richard Shackleton.
He was the younger brother of the considerably more respectable Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton.
And Francis was about to embark upon an adventure of a very different kind.
First Problem: They Weren’t Actually Crown Jewels
The famous name is slightly misleading.
There was no Irish crown among them.
The objects were ceremonial regalia associated with the Most Illustrious Order of St Patrick, an order of chivalry established by George III in 1783.
It performed for Ireland something broadly comparable to the Order of the Garter in England and the Order of the Thistle in Scotland.
The spectacular insignia included a jewelled star and badge incorporating diamonds, rubies and emeralds.
They were Crown property and were worn ceremonially by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland as Grand Master of the Order.
Calling them the “Irish Crown Jewels” was irresistible to newspapers.
The name stuck.
Meet the Man Who Was Supposed to Guard Them
Responsibility for the regalia rested with Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms.
This splendidly medieval-sounding office was actually extremely important.
Vicars headed the Office of Arms at Dublin Castle and was responsible for heraldry, genealogy and ceremonial matters.
Unfortunately, Sir Arthur appears to have possessed a somewhat relaxed interpretation of security.
The jewels were kept in a safe in the Bedford Tower.
They were originally intended to be kept in a strongroom.
There was, however, an embarrassing practical problem.
The safe purchased for them was too large to fit through the strongroom doorway.
Consequently, it remained outside it.
This was not an encouraging beginning.
Security, Dublin Castle Style
Things became worse.
Several people possessed keys allowing access to the Bedford Tower.
Vicars retained the safe keys himself.
But the atmosphere surrounding the Office of Arms seems to have been remarkably informal considering the valuables stored there.
Vicars sometimes displayed the jewels to visitors.
And Dublin Castle’s own historical account records an astonishing incident.
At a party, while Vicars was intoxicated, Lord Haddo — the Lord Lieutenant’s son — took a safe key, removed the jewels as a prank and subsequently returned them to Vicars through the post.
That should probably have resulted in an immediate reassessment of security.
Apparently it didn’t.
The prank demonstrated something extremely important.
Someone familiar with Vicars could obtain his key.
Someone familiar with the Castle could reach the safe.
And someone could remove the jewels without breaking anything.
The Last Sighting
The last confirmed sighting of the jewels was on 11 June 1907.
Vicars showed them to a visitor.
Then came a series of warning signs.
On 3 July, an entrance door was reportedly found unlocked.
On the morning of 6 July, the strongroom door was found open.
Still, the alarm was not immediately raised.
Later that afternoon Vicars instructed a messenger to place another insignia into the safe.
The safe was opened.
The jewels weren’t there.
Neither was some jewellery belonging to Vicars’s mother that had also been stored inside.
Nobody could even establish exactly when the theft had occurred.
The Irish Crown Jewels might have been missing for weeks.
Four Days Until the King Arrived
The timing could hardly have been worse.
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were expected in Ireland on 10 July.
The King was furious.
The missing regalia represented considerably more than expensive jewellery.
They belonged to an institution closely associated with Crown authority in Ireland.
And they had vanished from Dublin Castle.
The administrative headquarters of British government in Ireland could apparently police a country but couldn’t reliably police its own safe.
Nationalist critics could scarcely have invented a better embarrassment.
Scotland Yard Arrives
The Dublin Metropolitan Police investigated.
The Royal Irish Constabulary became involved.
Then Scotland Yard entered the case.
Detective Chief Inspector John Kane was sent from London.
The physical evidence suggested an obvious possibility:
this looked like an inside job.
The safe had not simply been violently forced.
Whoever took the jewels apparently knew how to gain access.
That sharply reduced the interesting part of the suspect pool.
Attention inevitably turned towards people associated with the Office of Arms.
And among them was Francis Shackleton.
The Other Shackleton
Francis Richard Shackleton was born in Ireland in 1876.
His older brother Ernest would become one of the most celebrated figures of Antarctic exploration.
Francis followed a very different trajectory.
He moved within respectable social circles and developed an interest in heraldry and genealogy.
Sir Arthur Vicars helped him obtain appointment as Dublin Herald in 1905.
That placed Shackleton inside Vicars’s Office of Arms.
He knew the environment.
He knew Vicars.
He had access to the Castle.
And there was another difficulty.
Francis needed money.
Shackleton’s Finances
Francis Shackleton lived considerably beyond his means.
Financial problems would follow him spectacularly through life.
By 1910 he would be declared bankrupt owing almost £85,000, an enormous amount of money.
Later he became involved in financial fraud.
In 1913 he was convicted at the Old Bailey of fraudulently converting money entrusted to him and sentenced to fifteen months’ hard labour.
None of this proves that he stole the Irish Crown Jewels in 1907.
That point cannot be emphasised strongly enough.
A person who subsequently commits fraud does not automatically become guilty of an earlier theft.
But investigators looking for motive could hardly ignore his financial circumstances.
Shackleton knew the Castle.
He knew Vicars.
He knew the Office of Arms.
He needed money.
The suspicion was inevitable.
There Was One Rather Large Problem
Shackleton apparently wasn’t in Dublin when the theft was most likely to have occurred.
That complicates the neat solution considerably.
If Francis Shackleton was involved, therefore, one possibility is that he did not personally remove the jewels.
Perhaps he organised the theft.
Perhaps someone else carried it out.
Or perhaps he had absolutely nothing to do with it.
This is where historical fact begins dissolving into theory.
Enter Captain Richard Gorges
Another name repeatedly associated with the mystery was Captain Richard Gorges, an associate of Shackleton.
Later allegations proposed that Shackleton masterminded the theft while Gorges physically removed the jewels.
The theory gained additional potency because both men moved within social circles capable of producing another kind of scandal.
Francis Shackleton was gay.
At a time when sexual activity between men was criminal, that fact made him vulnerable.
And it also encouraged generations of writers to construct increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories around the theft.
The Ghost of 1884
Here our previous Dublin Castle scandal suddenly returns.
Only twenty-three years earlier, Dublin Castle had been rocked by allegations involving homosexual men, officials, police and accusations of concealment.
The authorities knew exactly how destructive another homosexual scandal involving people associated with the Castle could become.
Rumours consequently developed that Shackleton possessed embarrassing knowledge about important men.
One theory proposed that officials avoided prosecuting him because he could expose homosexual relationships involving members of the establishment.
It is a wonderful conspiracy theory.
There is just one problem.
We cannot prove it.
The distinction between plausible suspicion and established evidence is essential throughout this story.
Sir Arthur Points the Finger
Sir Arthur Vicars became absolutely convinced that Francis Shackleton was responsible.
He maintained the accusation for the remainder of his life.
In his will, written years later, Vicars claimed that he had been made a scapegoat while authorities protected the real thief.
He named that thief explicitly:
Francis R. Shackleton.
That is powerful evidence of what Vicars believed.
It is not proof that Vicars was correct.
The Commission
A Viceregal Commission investigated the affair in 1908.
Vicars wanted a much broader inquiry into the theft itself.
Instead, the Commission concentrated heavily upon his responsibility for the inadequate security arrangements.
Its conclusion was devastating.
Vicars had failed to exercise proper care over the jewels entrusted to him.
He lost his position.
Shackleton also left his position as Dublin Herald.
Yet the central question remained unanswered.
Who stole the jewels?
Parliament Starts Asking Awkward Questions
The mystery refused to disappear.
Irish nationalist MP Laurence Ginnell repeatedly questioned ministers at Westminster about the investigation.
Years after the theft, Parliament was still discussing Shackleton, access to the Castle, keys and supposedly confidential police reports.
In 1912, Ginnell explicitly asked whether prosecutors knew that Shackleton had access to the room containing the jewels and whether allegations existed that he had boasted that other people would be compromised if he were prosecuted.
The Attorney-General refused substantive comment because Shackleton was then facing unrelated criminal proceedings.
In January 1913, the government acknowledged something revealing.
Police had investigated the jewel theft.
But they had found no evidence sufficient to justify bringing a criminal charge against anyone.
That remains enormously important.
Suspicion is not evidence.
And suspicion never became prosecution.
What Happened to the Jewels?
Now we reach the really tantalising question.
Even if we cannot identify the thief, surely a spectacular collection of diamonds, emeralds and rubies would eventually reappear?
Apparently not.
One obvious theory is depressing:
they were broken up.
If the thief wanted money rather than trophies, keeping historically identifiable royal regalia would have been extraordinarily dangerous.
The stones could be removed.
Metal could be melted.
Individual gems could enter the international jewellery trade.
One contemporary theory suggested that the jewels had been taken to the Continent and dismantled.
Amsterdam, an important centre of the diamond trade, appears repeatedly in versions of the story.
But again:
no definitive evidence establishes that this happened.
The Nationalists Did It!
Another theory blamed Irish republicans or nationalists.
The political symbolism would certainly have been spectacular.
Stealing royal regalia from inside Dublin Castle would have constituted an extraordinary humiliation of British authority.
But investigators never established such a plot.
The theory has persisted partly because it makes such a satisfying story.
History unfortunately does not have to provide satisfying endings.
The Unionists Did It!
Naturally, if Irish nationalists could be blamed, someone eventually blamed their opponents.
Another theory proposed that Unionists arranged the disappearance for political reasons connected with opposition to Home Rule.
Again, evidence is lacking.
By this stage our jewellery box is becoming rather crowded with conspiracy theories.
Perhaps the Royal Family Has Them
One particularly colourful theory suggested that the stones somehow returned to royal possession and were subsequently incorporated into other jewellery.
Dublin Castle’s own historical account notes that a theory developed claiming that stones from the missing regalia appeared in a badge worn by Queen Elizabeth II.
Buckingham Palace disputed the claim.
There is no persuasive evidence supporting it.
So we probably shouldn’t frisk the Royal Collection just yet.
Then Came the Clairvoyants
No great unsolved mystery is complete without somebody consulting the supernatural.
Spiritualists became involved.
A séance reportedly produced information suggesting that the jewels were hidden in a cemetery near Dublin.
A search followed.
No Crown Jewels emerged.
One imagines Sir Arthur Vicars’s patience deteriorating considerably by this point.
Police had failed.
Scotland Yard had failed.
A Commission had failed.
And now the dead weren’t being particularly helpful either.
A Possible Later Lead
Years later, jeweller James Weldon reportedly received information purporting to reveal where the jewels could be found.
Dublin Castle’s account records that Weldon identified a man he met concerning the affair as Shackleton.
Nothing came of it.
Approximately twenty years later, another communication reached Weldon and eventually came to the attention of Irish leader W. T. Cosgrave.
Still the jewels remained missing.
Every promising trail seems to end the same way.
Nothing.
Francis Shackleton’s Later Career Does Him No Favours
Unfortunately for Francis, his subsequent life makes defending his reputation rather difficult.
His enormous bankruptcy was followed by flight abroad.
In 1912 he was arrested in Portuguese West Africa over unrelated fraud allegations and returned to Britain.
In October 1913 he was convicted at the Old Bailey of fraudulent conversion.
After prison, he adopted the surname Mellor.
His brother Ernest apparently helped him obtain employment.
Francis lived until 1941.
He never confessed to stealing the Irish Crown Jewels.
Nor was he ever prosecuted for doing so.
And Vicars Met a Terrible End
Sir Arthur Vicars’s story ended tragically.
After losing his Castle position, he eventually settled at Kilmorna House in County Kerry.
During the Irish War of Independence, IRA members took him from his home.
In April 1921 he was shot dead.
A notice left with his body accused him of informing.
Thus one of the central figures in the Crown Jewels mystery died violently without ever seeing his name publicly vindicated.
He remained convinced until the end that Shackleton had ruined him.
So Who Did It?
If we construct the case like detectives, several things seem reasonably clear.
The thief probably possessed considerable familiarity with Dublin Castle.
Access appears to have been achieved without obvious violent entry.
The security surrounding the jewels was astonishingly poor.
Several people within the Castle circle potentially possessed the knowledge necessary to obtain them.
Francis Shackleton had access, financial difficulties and a close relationship with Vicars.
But Shackleton also appears to have been away when the theft itself probably occurred.
No physical evidence connected him with the stolen jewels.
No confession emerged.
No jewels were discovered in his possession.
And no criminal charge concerning the theft was ever brought against him.
Therefore the responsible historical verdict remains:
Francis Shackleton is a compelling suspect, not a proven thief.
The Perfect Crime?
There is something almost comical about the whole affair.
The headquarters of British administration in Ireland contained ceremonial jewels representing British authority.
Someone apparently walked into the relevant offices, opened the safe, removed them and disappeared.
Officials did not immediately notice.
The precise date of the crime could not be established.
The investigation became entangled with personal rivalries, sexuality, political embarrassment and accusations of conspiracy.
The official responsible for security was dismissed.
The principal suspect was never charged.
The jewels vanished.
And more than a century later, nobody knows where they went.
If the thief’s intention was to embarrass Dublin Castle, the operation succeeded magnificently.
Our Verdict
So have we recovered them?
Sadly, no.
Coco Chanel appears to have an excellent alibi. 😄
My own evidence-based suspicion would remain with an inside job or an operation involving someone intimately familiar with the Office of Arms. Shackleton belongs near the top of the suspect list, but the evidence simply doesn’t permit us to write “Francis Shackleton stole the Crown Jewels” as historical fact.
Perhaps the most likely fate of the jewels is also the least romantic.
They may no longer exist.
The settings could have been destroyed, the precious metals melted and the stones recut and sold individually.
If so, some of those diamonds, rubies or emeralds may still exist today.
They could have passed through dozens of owners.
They might be sitting in a jewellery box somewhere in London, Paris, Dublin or Amsterdam.
Their present owner might have absolutely no idea.
The Irish Crown Jewels could therefore have been hidden for more than a century in the most ingenious place imaginable:
in plain sight.
Tim Alderman ©️2026
Sources and Further Reading
Dublin Castle, “The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels.”
Dictionary of Irish Biography, “Shackleton, Francis Richard (‘Frank’).”
UK Parliament, Hansard, parliamentary questions concerning the Dublin Castle Crown Jewels, 1912–1913.
History Ireland, “The Theft of the Irish Crown Jewels, 1907.”
Contemporary and later reporting in The Irish Times concerning the theft and subsequent allegations.
Reports of the 1908 Viceregal Commission into the custody and disappearance of the regalia.
