Russborough House, Ireland

The house’s dire reputation began about a century ago. The owner at the time, the Earl of Middletown, commissioned a series of paintings from a local artist. Unhappy with the results, the earl refused to pay and ordered the canvases burned. Furious, the painter placed a curse on the estate, vowing that no fine artwork would ever hang there in peace again. Ever since, every attempt to display valuable paintings in the manor has ended in theft or fire.

Years later the property was bought by Sir Alfred Bate, a baronet who had made his fortune in diamonds. He owned roughly three hundred Old Master paintings—including works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Rubens, and Goya—and decided to turn Russborough into a showcase gallery, ignoring the servants’ warnings about the curse.

Less than a year passed before the first robbery. Bridget Rose Dugdale, Bate’s own god-daughter, slipped a sleeping drug to the household, and her accomplices removed nineteen paintings. Although the thieves were quickly caught and the canvases returned, that heist was only the beginning. More robberies followed, no matter how tight the security.

The unrelenting thefts wore Alfred Bate down. He pored over ancient texts and consulted psychics in hopes of shielding the collection from the supernatural, but he died suddenly. The burglaries continued. Drained by the struggle and conceding that paintings simply won’t stay in Russborough, Lady Bate has decided to send the best of the collection to the National Gallery of Ireland.

From 100 Cursed Places · Fern Flower Press