The Loan to Moscow

The shamrock and the sickle were once comrades on their uppers. In 1920, delegations from revolutionary Ireland and revolutionary Russia came to the U.S. to raise funds and beg recognition. Moscow's men had much less luck; they got so stony broke that Dublin's men lent them $20,000. For security, the Russians gave the Irish four pieces of jewelry (diamonds, rubies and sapphires), presumably from the Romanov crown collection.

Ireland never heard of this traffic with Beelzebub until 28 years had passed. Then, in the heat of an election, someone challenged Eamon De Valera: "Where are the Russian jewels?" Dev told how his old crony Harry Boland had hidden them at his home in Dublin. In 1922, as he lay dying from Free State bullets, anti-Free State Irish Republican Extremist Boland pledged his sister and mother never to give up the jewels until Ireland was free. Not until Britain left the Irish ports in 1938 did the Boland women turn over the treasure to Dev's government.

No more was said until last week. Then, Dev's Irish Press broke the news that the Russians had at long last repaid the loan and retrieved their jewels. Prime Minister John A. Costello explained that the Russian jewels had never been worth more than $5,600, but his government had collected the full $20,000. Thus closed the first, and probably the last, Soviet-Irish loan.

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