The Woman Who Stole Vermeer by Anthony M. Amore

Author:Anthony M. Amore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2020-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

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The events of February 1974 would make it a pivotal month in the life of Rose Dugdale. Her entire future would be shaped by the events both within and outside of her control. For the first time in her life, she was on the run, fully dependent upon people hardly known to her. Alongside Eddie Gallagher, her dedication to the Republican movement was still ablaze, perhaps more than ever, and the pair would pay careful attention to important events that would dominate the news for weeks to come.

Regardless of the results of the attempted bombing at Strabane, in the view of the police Rose had elevated her status from gunrunner and rabble-rouser to bona fide terrorist seeking to inflict mass casualties. Added to her dangerousness was the great embarrassment she had caused the police and even the Irish prime minister by so quickly foiling their efforts to quash IRA operations—especially by air—in the aftermath of the Mountjoy Prison break. Rose traveled the Irish countryside, going from town to town and staying at safe houses with people friendly to the cause. “We were constantly moving to people who were hugely supportive. I mean, that’s been the wonderful thing about Ireland,” she would remember wistfully years later, “that the people in the country have such generosity and such welcome for people who are trying to fight to free the country. It was a wonderful experience.”18 When asked later in life by radio host John Murray if these friendly people were giving succor to a terrorist, she readily answered, “Yes,” but blamed government control of the media for such a term. “The language of terrorism really only came in when the Brits told the media to behave like that and use ‘terrorist’… I mean, who is the terrorist today?”19

Her experiences meeting the people of Ireland only deepened her resolve. As she traveled, she saw poverty that she blamed on the country’s imperial oppressors and talked about “meeting some of the poorest people you could ever meet living in the west of Ireland, where the lack of development deprived people of any kind of livelihood.”20 What she was seeing and experiencing was confirming what in college and in Tottenham had been mere educated speculation: colonialism was subjugating the people of Northern Ireland.

Dugdale recalled a period of great action while on the run. She wasn’t interested in merely laying low—she had come to Ireland to be a fighter, and fight she would, seeking new ways to bring the battle to the British. “Every day was really dependent on whether an operation would be successful and how you could expand your activities,” Rose said.21 Still, she had to take care to keep her head down. The M62 coach bombing had meant that police were conducting sweeps of homes, and now, intensive efforts were in place to identify and capture those involved in the helicopter missions at Mountjoy and Strabane.

The Republican movement maintained an impressive network of safe houses and sympathizers able to allow wanted confederates to remain on the move and active during their war.

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