The exact circumstances surrounding the three major thefts of paintings from the Beit Collection at Russborough, in 1974, 1986 and 2001, are still fairly unclear.

In 1974 a gang, thought to have republican connections, and including the English heiress Dr Rose Dugdale, broke into Russborough, bound and gagged Sir Alfred and Lady Beit, and made off with 19 paintings. All the paintings were recovered in a cottage in Co Cork, and Dugdale was subsequently sentenced to nine years' imprisonment for her part in the robbery.

IRA sources later claimed that the robbery had not been officially sanctioned by its army council.

The establishment of the Beit Foundation in 1976, which held Russborough and the art collection in trust for the nation, did not prevent thieves from striking again, in May 1986. This time the Beits were away.

The 1986 robbery is generally accepted as being the work of Martin Cahill, known as The General. Even such details as the number of paintings taken varies considerably in contemporary accounts, but reputable estimates are that 15 paintings were taken, including most of the finest works in the collection, including the Vermeer, the Goya portrait and two Metsus. While various estimates of monetary value were placed on the stolen paintings, in fact the Vermeer is virtually impossible to value. Of the 15 paintings taken, four were abandoned immediately.

It became clear that the thieves had no realistic plan for profiting from the robbery, and a bizarre saga of deals, busts and fiascoes ensued.

In 1987, a Garda sting operation to recover the paintings went embarrassingly awry when a simple piece of radio equipment failed. However, this failure galvanised Garda efforts to catch The General, reportedly to the extent that he came to regret having stolen the paintings. The tangled trail of their dispersal involved Dublin businessmen, crooked art dealers, a Turkish general, loyalist paramilitaries and international drug dealers.

While the paintings trickled back over the years (several were recovered in London), the most spectacular single breakthrough occurred in 1993 in Belgium. The recovery there of several of the most important Beit paintings was an almost incidental product of an investigation aimed at apprehending international drug dealers - and said to have cost the lives of three undercover officers.

The paintings are thought to have been used as collateral in a drug deal. Three of the paintings stolen in 1986, including a fine Rubens portrait head, are still missing.

At the time of the 1986 robbery, discussions about transferring some of the collection to the National Gallery of Ireland were under way, and the most important of the recovered paintings went to the Gallery, which now houses a total of 17 of the Beit paintings.

Incredibly, last year, Russborough was targeted again, when a Gainsborough portrait was stolen for the third time, along with a work by Belotto. Neither of the paintings taken in this robbery has been recovered as yet.