Rose Dugdale: The English heiress who joined the IRA

“If it wasn’t true it’s hard to believe – you could barely make it up”.

That is how the filmmakers of a new film about English aristocrat turned IRA member Rose Dugdale, who died on Monday aged 83, have described her life.

The heiress and debutante became involved in the IRA during the Troubles and masterminded an £8m fine art heist.

She also made a failed attempt to bomb a police station in Strabane using a helicopter hijacked in County Donegal.

For a time Dugdale was the UK and Ireland’s most wanted woman.

In 1974 she was sentenced to nine years in prison for her involvement with the IRA after the art heist.

Alongside IRA gunmen, she carried out an armed raid on Russborough House in County Wicklow where they stole 19 masterpieces, including a Rubens, Goya and Vermeer.

Sinn Féin said Ireland had lost a “comrade”.

“Rose was a committed republican and was unflinching in her beliefs, and Ireland has today lost a committed republican and activist, and Sinn Féin a valued comrade,” said TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh.

However there has been criticism on social media that coverage is glamorising Dugdale.

Writing on X Ann Travers, whose sister was killed by the IRA, said that Dugdale was “not a rebel heroine”.

“She was a terrorist, bomber and murderer. Thinking of all of her victims, who weren’t afforded the natural death that she was,” said Ms Travers.

Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy, the writers and directors of the Baltimore, starring Imogen Poots, said it can be seen as a “story of radicalisation”.

Speaking on Sunday with Steven Rainey, the day before her death, Lawlor said Dugdale’s transition from English aristocrat to “militancy” had been a gradual process, building from a young age.

“When she was a debutant she was angry about the occasion where you had to be presented in front of the Queen and called it a ‘pornographic affair’.

“So even at the age of 17 she looked at the world differently to her family,” he told the programme.

“One wonders where that perspective came from.

“She went to Oxford, she became a Marxist.”

It was at Oxford where she and former Tory MP Edwina Currie shared an economics tutor, Peter Ady, who Dugdale reportedly had an affair with.

She later told author Sean O’Driscoll Ady had been the “love of her life”.

“She was scruffy – which was unusual in those days, terribly well spoken and laid back, well-off and rebellious,” Mrs Currie told BBC’s Talkback programme.

“We knew Rose was a rebel in the 60s. She saw everything in stark terms and that was before the radicalisation.”

Christine Molloy said the couple stumbled across her story while researching the history of Russborough House for a documentary.

“We were surprised that we hadn’t really heard of the story before – it kind of took hold of us and wouldn’t let go,” she said.

Before her death, Dugdale had lived in Dublin for many decades and Sinn Féin said there was an active member of the party.

In the book ‘Heiress, Rebel, Vigilante, Bomber: The Extraordinary Life of Rose Dugdale’ she told author Sean O’Driscoll that the happiest day of her life was the Strabane bombing.

She and Eddie Gallagher hijacked a helicopter in Donegal, forced a civilian pilot to fly it, and dropped homemade milk churn bombs out of the helicopter.

O’Driscoll also said that there is evidence that she was involved in the development of arms.

He told Talkback that she used to go to an IRA safe house in County Mayo which had a beach where they would test weapons.

“In the Army museum in London you can see a biscuit launcher where digestives were placed in the back of it to absorb the gas that would come out – which later became the rice launcher – she developed that,” he added.

“It was her idea to deconstruct Semtex into PETN and RDZ – its component explosives – to make a new type of fuse.”

For filmmaker Joe Lawlor it has been a “difficult balancing act”, but he said the film was not a biopic.

He said Baltimore was neither an attempt to “glamorise her or damn her”.

“We genuinely attempt not to do either of those things but merely present the details of her life – to try to understand her as a human being,” he added.

“I hope people can see we have tried to strike a right balance.”