Sundance Now's 'The Heiress and the Heist' Tells the Story of British Debutante Turned IRA Thief Rose Dugdale

It's a truth universally acknowledged that often real life can be a whole lot stranger (and often much, much darker) than fiction. This, of course, is a big part of the reason that the true crime genre is so enduringly popular. And the story of Irish criminal and terrorist Rose Dugdale is bizarre enough that it sounds like it should be fiction. But it isn't.

True crime docuseries The Heiress and the Heist arrives on Sundance Now this July and aims to introduce her story to American audiences. Born Bridget Rose Dugdale, she was an English heiress and debutante from a wealthy London family. (She even met Queen Elizabeth II at one point!)  She ultimately rebelled against her aristocratic upbringing, becoming a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army and crafting some of the group's most audacious activities, including a multi-million dollar art heist and a bomb attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary station that involved a hijacked helicopter

The three-part series chronicles Rose's transformation into a revolutionary, from early childhood to her time in Limerick Prison, but its primary focus is the Russborough House heist in 1974, which she largely organized. Under her instruction, the gang stole 19 works of art by old masters that would be valued at around 90 million dollars today, including paintings by Gainsborough, Rubens, Vermeer, and Goya. (The Vermeer that was stolen, Lady Writing a Letter to Her Made, was the only Vermeer held in private ownership outside of the one at Buckingham Palace.)