The last few months have been a high-risk time for the owners of good country houses containing antiques or artefacts that attract the attention of gangs of organised thieves. The four main gangs believed to be involved are known to spend time targeting such homes with the intention of stealing items they know can be sold quickly at the major antiques fairs in England.

There is now a well established pattern of increases in burglaries in the weeks before English fairs where furniture and artefacts stolen from Irish country houses have been sold. "The best stalls are the Irish ones", said one Garda officer involved in investigating arts and antiques theft.

The Gardai are reticent about who is involved in what appears to be the well-organised robberies of Irish country houses. However, sources say it appears to be the work of four professional gangs. These gangs specialise in arts and antiques theft and are not known to have branched out into other forms of crime.

30,000 worth of furniture and artefacts from two houses. The stolen goods included Arabic silver, tables and chairs, a wine cooler an armoir and other items likely to attract the interest of buyers at English antique fairs.

Some stolen goods are recovered. An Italian games table worth around £12,000, which was stolen in the midlands last year, was found at a Christie's auction in New York earlier this year; negotiations are under way to return it to Ireland. An American bracket clock stolen from a house in Kildare was recovered during the autumn in England.

A number of other items, including a pair of 18th Century mahogany cupboards valued at £30,000 and a table put at £25,000 were recovered from Brighton dealers. Investigations show all the recovered items appear to come from similar sources. 60,000. All came from Irish houses. The haul included a paintining by John Russel with an estimated value of 25,000 stolen from Castletown House, in Co Kildare.

The dealer, who was acquitted of all charges, said the items involved ["]had been brought to him from travelling people["] and he had intended to have the items valued in London. He said he had been buying antiques ["]from the travelling people["] since he first opened his shop in Belfast in 1976.

The persistence of the country house robbers has caused a group of victims to form their own self-help group; this has developed contacts in England and further abroad with the aim of recovering stolen Irish artefacts. The Council for the Protection of Irish Heritage Products has had a number of successes in finding stolen goods. It can be contacted by fax at 01-2865866. Membership carries an annual fee of "at least £25."

One of the areas where country houses have been targeted and robbed, almost on a systematic basis this year, is the KildareMeath-Louth area. Chief Superintendent Al McHugh of the Louth-Meath Division encourages people living in the country in houses which contain valuables to avail of Garda assistance and advice about how to improve their security.

He urges such home-owners to call their local Crime Prevention Officer (CPO), who is specially trained in helping people to improve security, particularly in their own houses. "This is a free service to the public. CPOs are available in every division to go out, examine houses and make recommendations about security and safety provisions." "We have found that relatively few people have availed of this service despite the fact that they are vulnerable. The CPOs are experienced officers who will give people good advice. Some people may be worried about the cost of alarm systems but houses can be partly alarmed and there are always ways to improve security. "We know that despite the value of some of the antiques involved, some people can't properly alarm their properties or, in some cases, not even insure the items. In a number of instances this year we have found very valuable items were taken from houses which did not have alarms, or where the alarm was not turned on," he said.

"In some cases the burglaries appear to have been spur-of-the-moment affairs but there must have been surveillance in others. We have the Community Alert scheme and if people see anything suspicious that looks like a house being put under surveillance by criminals they should immediately contact the Gardai. We would rather answer a false alarm than find a house has been burgled."

In cities, where house-owners are more accustomed to having secure homes, the antique robbers are known to target houses under repair. People who have just bought or sold period houses with removable architectural features, either inside or out, are warned to be careful about securing their houses during the periods when they are vacant during sale transactions.

It is almost certain that teams of architectural salvage thieves are watching sales results with an eye to stealing valuable artefacts while houses are temporarily empty. Earlier this year, a house sold some weeks earlier at auction for almost £250,000 in Ranelagh, was robbed of its Victorian front door casement.

There are, in fact, thieves who specialise in looking out for vacant houses under repair in Dublin in order to seal valuable Victorian and Georgian features, such as door casements, pillars or garden furniture. Where thieves can gain access, they will concentrate on fireplaces and interior doors, and even cornicing features.

100 a week to protect fireplaces worth thousands of pounds while they wait to occupy.

The Dublin-based team which specialises in this type of robbery is among a growing number criminals who have stolen tens of millions of pounds worth of Irish antiques and artefacts, much of which disappears from the country never to be seen again. While gardai recover an average of £1 million to £2 million worth of stolen art and antiques each year, this probably represents only a small fraction of the total stolen. Broadly accepted criteria suggest that less than 10 per cent of stolen property is recovered in any one year.

The Garda's Art and Antiques Section was set up in 1995 as part of the Crime Branch at Garda Headquarters. This summer it moved to Harcourt Square, Dublin, where it has come under the auspices of the National Bureau of Crime Investigation. It has two detective sergeants, a detective garda and is headed by Det Supt Ted Murphy. The unit leads operations against major gangs and helps to train detectives in rural divisions, where these crimes are most prevalent. An important part of the unit's work involves contact with groups such as the Art and Antique Dealers Association and liaison with the Art Loss Register, Trace magazine and the Antique Trade Gazette in Britain. Through these groups and publications, detailed descriptions of items stolen here are circulated to auction houses and dealers. The unit has close links with British police forces.

"Thieves will take anything that could be described as a cultural object, door surrounds, fireplaces, grates, chairs, tables and cutlery. They will even take your teddy bear if it is old and valuable," one of the gardai warned.