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The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art

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There is a problem when you steal famous artworks: "Art is easy to steal, but hard to sell." So writes Matthew Hart in _The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art_ (Walker). For the criminals described here, it is easy to steal the art: bind and gag the guards, rip up the alarms, and especially get in and out fast. When Hart describes one successful heist after another, it certainly seems like no particular challenge. But what does the crook do when he has that painting? It is then that the risks mount up; the mere possession of a Rembrandt might give very esthetic thieves satisfaction, but that's not what they are in the game for. There is little reality to the "Dr. No" perpetrator, named for the fantastically evil evildoer pitted against James Bond; there really aren't secretive billionaires ordering thefts for hire to get their particular favorite artwork to themselves. What is far more likely nowadays is that a fraction of the stolen item's value could be used for collateral in, say, a drug deal. Still, the thief needs to unload the artwork somehow, and this need provides the drama in the episodes of Hart's book, as international police forces work together to orchestrate elaborate sting operations.

In 1974, the Vermeer _Lady Writing a Letter with her Maid_ was stolen from the Beit collection at Russborough House near Dublin by a gang whose most curious and visible member was Rose Dugdale, a seductive, smart, spoiled rich kid who rebelling against whatever, was an Englishwoman supporting the IRA's campaign of terror. Twelve years later, it was stolen again by Dublin gangster Martin Cahill. Most of Hart's book has to do with the difficulties of finding the paintings again, the dangers and the dead ends as international police forces set spies on Cahill and his gang, and Cahill set his spies on them. Remarkably, after both these robberies, conservators that had to clean and repair the painting found new aspects of the canvas that changed scholarly opinions about them. The work of the restorers, and their discoveries, are described here in satisfying detail. Tangential to the main story are descriptions of the famous unsolved thefts from the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston and the 1994 theft of Munch's _The Scream_ from the National Gallery of Norway.

Hart has given a fast-paced and captivating account of the symbiosis between cops and robbers. He has valuable remarks on the contemporary art world, art restoration, and the particular way the Irish play the game. He helps explain the peculiar relationship between Cahill's gang and the Garda by analyzing the history of the Irish resistance to authority. The recovered Vermeer was rehung at Russborough House, where yet another attempt was made on it. The Beit collection has since been taken in by Dublin's National Gallery, which is less isolated and more protected. Hart shows, however, that it is a reasonable conjecture that someone is looking at the Vermeer on the Gallery's walls and wondering just how difficult it might be to make off with it again, and how difficult to gain riches by finding a taker.

Matthew Hart's The Irish Game : A True Story of Crime and Art is an excellent read about Ireland, art, art theft, and criminal investigation. This is a very intiguing non-fiction book about the theft of art by Johannes Vermeer in 1986 from a great house/museum known as Russborough in Ireland.

Not only is this book a pleasure to read, I walked away learning quite a bit about art techniques, and art theft. Whereas non-fiction, if not done right, can tend to drag, this real story moves along at a brisk pace due in large part to the story, compelling characters, and smooth pace.

I really enjoyed learning about the Irish police AKA the Garda and the techniques they employed to track the art theft's chief suspect Martin Cahill.

I would encourage anyone interested in any of the aforementioned matters, inlcuding but not limited too: art theft, criminal investigative techniques, art techniques, and Ireland, to give this excellent book a try.

Matthew Hart is a charming and engaging writer who can bring any subject to light, and yet THE IRISH GAME is all over the place. Its subtitle, "A True Story of Crime and Art," might as well have been "Nine or Ten True Stories of Crime and Art." You do the math--there are the two parallel sagas of the robberies at Russborough House, which apparently have nothingto do with each other and that's the point. Then there is the story of the world's love of Vermeer, and how he above all other painters is venerated today. Hart compounds the Vermeer story by showing how art restorers have come up with soome farfetched theories of how Vermeer painted, presenting them as newly-discovered facts rather than the wild speculations they are. We also get the robbery of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum here in the USA and the finally the team that made away with THE SCREAM in Norway.

Any one of these storylines could have made a good book. I particularly liked the beginning chapters, which showed the political education of a British heiress and how she found herself deeper and deeper into the ideological clutches of the IRA; her story is worthy of Joseph Conrad, and Hart does it justice, even though he is forced to conclude it after only one or two chapters. The personality of Martin Cahill, whom I remember from the awesome John Boorman film of THE GENERAL, gets some new shadings here too. I imagine Hart had to be discreet in some places, both to protect his sources and to protect himself, as well, from libel suits, and the book is a splendid example of how to insinuate certain things without every having to come out and say them out loud. I still didn't get the title, "The Irish Game," might as well have called it, "The Norwegian Game."

This is the first true crime book I have ever read, and it won't be the last! Hart gives a history lesson of the Russborough Mansion and some of the paintings in it. You don't have to be familiar with art to really understand the heists and why the paintings were stolen. Hart gives you enough overall information; by the end of the book you will be an expert yourself. This book is packed to the max with great information. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants suspense, and historical information about the paintings.

"The Irish Game" tells the true stories of two separate art robberies at the palatial Russborough House in Wicklow. Of several paintings stolen, The Dutch master Jan Vermeer's "Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid" (called the Dublin Vermeer) is easily one the most valuable at several hundred million dollars. I'm not ordinarily predisposed to enjoying true-crime tales, but I found this intriguing and engaging. The world of art theft is a labyrinth of interconnected criminal factions and the trail of stolen art can easily traverse several countries. To accurately present the myriad details--not only of the heists, but also of the extraordinarily convoluted stings that would recover the stolen art--is a feat of painstaking research. To present this to the reader as a thrilling read as opposed to mere reportage is an even bigger challenge. I think that Hart did a splendid job in both.

Whether there was too much background or not enough of the characters' lives, the heists, and the coterie of detectives, depends greatly on one's preference. In a story such as this, I consider it vital to be given a surplus of details rather than a mere spattering. The art theft world is not as straightforward as most people would assume, that is steal the art then sell it. Most of the stolen art, we are informed, are not fenced but used as collateral for other crimes, usually drug dealing and arms procurement. To catch these criminals and recover the lost art goes beyond conventional detection, to say the least, and Hart does a fine job in elevating the narrative from a mere recitation of facts to a thrilling account of this complex game. As to be expected, there are maps, illustrations, color plates, photos, etc., that serve as visual aids to heighten interest.

Of particular interest to me was the segue into the discovery by an art conservationist of a Vermeer "secret." Anyone who's seen a Vermeer is amazed by the realism. The other thing that amazes is the perspective (the convergence of parallel lines into a vanishing point). To refresh my memory, I pulled out my copy of "Vermeer" by Arthur Wheelock, Jr., one of the National Gallery of Art's curators and the U.S.'s leading Vermeer scholar, and once again stared at each of the forty color plates. When I look at them, I get the sensation that I can almost `step into' the picture or that the scene depicted is immediately in front of me. It's both wondrous and chilling, and his mastery of perspective has baffled scholars for close to four hundred years. Several years ago, I saw a documentary featuring David Hockney of the "Secret Knowledge" infamy, illustrating his theory that the old masters had used optics such as the primitive versions of the camera obscura to help create their masterpieces. His theory was equated to heresy and fueled controversies and numerous critics, but I will admit that I found it logical and utterly believable. Shame on me. In Chap. 9, I was stunned by the spectacularly simple technique the innovative master must have used, and for some of us, it will evoke memories of the grade-school technique we were taught on how to draw a perfect circle (bet you want to know now, don't you?). I had forgotten that oftentimes, truth is simply...simple!

Two of the more astonishing facts the reader learns is that the Dublin Vermeer was stolen twice from the same place, first in 1974 by a gang headed by Rose Dugdale, an IRA supporter and the spoiled daughter of a millionaire, and second by a career criminal, Martin Cahill, twelve years later, and the other is that the two separate cases were solved by a father and his son, Ned Hogan and Liam Hogan. Both were officers in the Garda Síochána (Ireland's police force) and Ned was one of the major players in the recovery in the 1970s. When the second heist occurred in 1986, Liam was instrumental in the recovery of the same Vermeer. As father and son look at the recovered Dutch Vermeer, Liam says to his father, "If they lose it again, they can get it back themselves." Ned's reply? "If we get it back again, we keep it."

I don't generally read mystery novels;for the simple reason that when I finish one,I don't really feel that I've learned anything.Sure,there is the suspense, of trying to figure out whodunit;in the final analysis,logic isn't the governing factor;and the author calls the shot.
True crime is quite a different matter,and I find that getting into the real mind of a real person,is much more interesting.
Reading this book, one gets a very real insight into crime in the art world. The way the mind of Cahill works is unveiled as well as the way that the Irish police operate. After all,Irish culture is the result of many centuries of the people fighting the establishment.
The author beautifully sums it up with this paragraph;
"But the roots of insurrection stretch much farther back in time,into an ancient tradition of secret,peasant societies formed by the dispossessed Gaels in the centuries following the Norman invasion,and persisting into later times. These small,clandestine bands had no chnce of reversing history. Their mission was to exact a steady taxation of terror from those in power over them. They depended on concealment on the complicity of their fellow Irishmen,who shared their language,race and fate. This old tradition of resistance to authority was too deeply engrained to evaporate with Irish independence,and the job of a policeman in Ireland is always at war with the past."
Along with gaining a good insight into Irish crime; we get a real understanding of the nature of crime in the world of priceless art. I often wondered why criminals stole these items when they are so easily identifiable and therefore virtually impossible to fence. This book clearly explains what goes on here. When a great piece of art is stolen,we also see that it becomes an international crime.
This book reads like fiction; but when you come to the end ;you are left with the satisfaction that you've really learned something.

A delightful book. If you like true stories about the almost perfect heist involving great works of art, then you'll enjoy this book. And like any good book, it is not only entertaining but teaches you something you didn't know...in this case about the world of crime and art.

Some of the story has been in a feature film but this is the stuff of brilliant documentaries .. an excellant look at the modern yet arcane world of art theft and dubious evaluation

I purchased this book for a "Santa" gift and was so embarrassed by the appearance I had to buy another book. The last half of the book was all rumpled and water stained. Truly not as described as "good" condition.