http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/woman/real_life/article2116482.ece
By OLIVER HARVEY
Chief Feature Writer, in Dublin
Published: 10 Jan 2009
WITH her woolly Celtic FC hat pulled down over her greying hair, Rose Dugdale seems typical of the pensioners braving the cold on her drab Dublin housing estate.
It is only when the elderly mother’s voice slips into an upper-class English accent that she reveals another life lived.
For the 67-year-old in the scruffy jacket and combat trousers is English heiress Dr Bridget Rose Dugdale — who became an IRA terrorist, art heist mastermind and the world’s most wanted woman.
When The Sun tracked down the former debutante to her modest, pebble-dashed Dublin semi, the one-time Provo bandit queen snapped in a posh accent: “Clear off, right. I’m not answering questions.”
It is hardly surprising the woman her neighbours know simply as Rose declined to talk about the past. It was 35 years ago this April the millionaire’s daughter and her IRA pals were behind the biggest art heist the world had ever seen.
The four-strong gang pistol-whipped Sir Alfred Beit at his stately home 20 miles south of Dublin and made off with 19 Old Masters then worth £8million.
With her Provo lover Eddie Gallagher, Dugdale also hijacked a helicopter and dropped bombs in milk churns as it hovered over a police station in Northern Ireland. They failed to go off.
Her journey from English society rose to Irish fighting rebel was the ultimate act of revolt for a daughter of The Establishment.
Dugdale was brought up on a rambling country estate, went to finishing school and as a debutante was “presented” to the Queen.
Yet on April 26, 1974, the pampered rich girl who once had a governess and a trust fund became the world’s most wanted fugitive. It was a warm spring night and about 9.30pm when Dugdale knocked on the door of Russborough House, County Wicklow, home of diamond magnate Sir Alfred Beit.
Adopting a French accent and in a black wig and make-up, she said her silver Ford Cortina had broken down. Seconds later she was joined by three men brandishing revolvers.
Beit was hit on his head with a gun and he and wife Clementine were tied up with stockings in the library. The gang stole historic paintings by Gainsborough, Rubens, Goya and Vermeer.
The first member of the Irish police force, or Gardai, at the scene was young Sergeant Sean Feeley.
Now 64, he exclusively told The Sun: “Dugdale was in charge, telling the gang which pictures to take. She pointed up at the walls and said, ‘That one, that one’. She had been in the house before as a guest.
“Sir Alfred was the first person I met. He had blood streaming out of the back of his head where he had been hit by a gun.”
Sean said the Provos had welcomed Dugdale despite her Establishment background after she proved herself a daring operator.
He added: “Despite being an English heiress, the IRA took her on board. Four weeks earlier she had taken part in a bombing from a helicopter.” The art thieves demanded the release of sisters Dolours and Marian Price, jailed for their part in an IRA bombing, plus £500,000 in exchange for their haul.
After eight days a massive hunt led the Gardai to a rented cottage in Glandore, County Cork, where they found Dugdale — and the paintings.
She was arrested, charged and later sentenced to nine years jail after pleading “proudly and incorruptibly guilty” in court.
She also got a nine-year concurrent sentence for helping to hijack the helicopter for the police station raid.
Dugdale was pregnant with her terrorist lover Gallagher’s child. He and accomplice Marian Coyle kidnapped Dutch industrialist Dr Tiede Herrema and demanded the release of Dugdale and two other terrorists.
The kidnappers were traced to a house in Monasterevin, County Kildare, and a two-week siege began.
Gallagher — who had held a gun to Herrema’s head — finally gave himself up and was sentenced to 20 years. On January 24, 1978 Dugdale and Gallagher were married in the chapel of Limerick Prison as three-year-old son Ruairi looked on. The newlyweds were allowed a five-hour honeymoon inside one of the cells before the groom was returned to the maximum-security prison at Portlaoise, 60 miles away.
Dugdale was released in 1980 after serving six years of her sentence.
Gallagher left prison in 1990 but after 14 years inside their relationship didn’t survive.
Today the ex-kidnapper runs a hostel and stables in his hometown of Ballybofey, County Donegal.
A police source told The Sun: “The last we heard the couple’s son Ruairi was in Holland.”
Dugdale’s crime spree was a world away from the privilege of her upper-class upbringing.
Born in 1941, her father Lieutenant Colonel Eric Dugdale ran a successful syndicate at insurers Lloyd’s. Her mother Caroline came from a wealthy family who made their money in cotton. The family home — Dugdale had an older sister and younger brother — was a 600-acre farm near Axminster, Devon. They also owned a Georgian townhouse in London’s Chelsea where Dugdale was looked after by a French governess.
Dugdale admits her childhood was “very, very happy”. School was Miss Ironside’s — a private academy for ladies in London. Later she attended finishing school in Europe.
In 1958 she was one of the last of the debutantes — where upper-class girls were “presented” to the Queen before being launched into the four-month “season” of glittering balls in the hope of snaring a rich husband.
The lavish season cost today’s equivalent of £120,000 and provoked rebellion from Dugdale.
She later described her coming out ball as “one of those pornographic affairs which cost what 60 old-age pensioners receive in six months”.
A picture from that time at St Anne’s College, Oxford University, shows an attractive woman, her styled blonde hair tucked under her mortar board, with piercing eyes and a gleaming smile.
She later became a Doctor of Philosophy after studying in the US and London University and became a government economist. In 1972 she met ex Guardsman and petty criminal Wally Heaton, who described himself as a “revolutionary socialist”. The two made frequent trips together to Northern Ireland, to march in political demonstrations.
Dugdale had finally found her cause. She knew that on the night of June 6, 1973, her parents would be away from their Devon estate.
With Heaton she stole paintings and antiques worth £82,000.
She was caught and got a two-year suspended sentence. At her trial Dugdale told her father: “I love you, daddy, but I hate everything you stand for.”
Today she lives in a two-bedroom semi and drives a 15-year-old Toyota.
Neighbour William Rothwell, 76, said last night: “Of course we know who she is but we don’t exactly ask her how the art world is doing. She’s very friendly and well-liked.”
Dugdale is involved with Dublin Community Television and her enthusiasm for the Irish Republican cause seems undimmed.
Speaking to back a motion at a 2007 Sinn Fein conference she said with a slip of the tongue: “I’m here in support of the revolution — I mean the resolution.”
Stomping round yesterday in her thick-soled boots, it seems the renegade debutante is still rebelling.
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