Reports suggest that thieves have stolen limestone statues of Oliver Cromwell and William of Orange from the grounds of an estate in Co. Cork.
The thieves also stole two eagle statues from the Milltown Castle near Charleville. Unlike the imaginative Russian thieves that stole a bridge overnight for scrap metal, the Cork robbers won’t be able to sell the statues for much because limestone is, well, useless.
The statues have been in the estate sine 1775 and were placed there by a family called ‘The Bruces’.
Claude Keane, whose family took over the estate in the 1890s, said: “The statues have no material value and are all made from limestone. But they were part of our life as we saw them every day when we came and went and they were like part of the family.”
The thieves must have had some help as the statues of the two English lads were around five feet tall, while the eagles were around four feet tall each.
Det. Garda Liam Ruttle of Charleville told the Irish Examiner: “We feel that a lorry with a Hiab-type arm-lift must have been used to take the eagles from their pillars and the two statues.
“A lorry drove through a four-crossroad junction near Milltown Castle at around 2am and we feel it may have been used and was leaving the area in a hurry.”
