[2][3][4][5] The house was acquired in 1970 by the owners of Roches Stores and, after a long campaign to save it, was demolished in 1983 to build the Frascati Shopping Centre.

[citation needed] It was around this period that a number of marine villas were built around Blackrock – including Maretimo, Carysfort, Lios an Uisce, Sans Souci and others.

Jacob Smith, who also worked at Carton and Russborough, landscaped and devised the large formal gardens filled with rare plants and shrubs.

[citation needed] The house stood well back from the road on several acres of woods and parkland, and the Priory Stream passed through its grounds.

The gateway stood close to where the entrance to the Blackrock Shopping Centre stands today and its lands stretched back to where Sydney Avenue is now located.

It was the favourite place of residence of Lord Edward FitzGerald,[citation needed] a prominent commander of the United Irishmen.

Emily was a strong devotee of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, which preached the importance of practical lessons from the real world rather than rigid book learning.

The couple rarely had a permanent home during their time together, due to Lord Edward FitzGerald's involvement with the United Irishmen.

Pamela, believed by some to be the illegitimate daughter of Duke of Orleans,[6] was described as "elegant and engaging in the highest degree" and of "judicious taste in her remarks and curiosities".

We came last night, got up to a delightful spring day, and we are now enjoying the little book room, with the windows open, hearing the birds sing, and the place looking beautiful.

Pamela has dressed four beautiful flower-pots, and is now working at her frame, while I write to my dearest mother; and upon the two little stands are six pots of fine auriculas, and I am sitting in a bay window with all those pleasant feelings which the fine weather, the pretty place, the singing birds, the pretty wife and Frescati give me.

This school prepared students for Trinity College, Dublin, and emphasised anti-Papist (anti-Catholic) values, much the opposite of what Lord Edward believed.

[8] Roches threatened to sue Dún Laoghaire Corporation for £1.3 million, a large amount at the time, despite legal opinion that such a claim could never be substantiated.

Dún Laoghaire Corporation submitted a proposal for opinion that they could demolish the wings and integrate the Pillar room into the part that was to be retained.

Several groups in favour of conservation including An Taisce, Bord Fáilte, the National Monuments Advisory Council, the Old Dublin Society, the Arts Council, and the Irish Georgian Society, signed a formal objection rejecting any proposition on the part of Dún Laoghaire Corporation to permit the demolition of any part of Frescati.

[9] Marie Avis Walker exploited a legal loophole, which had first been exposed by somebody who had applied for permission to build "a small cabin of clay and wattles made, nine bean rows, and a hive for honey bee" on the Isle of Innisfree earlier in the 1970s.

In 1982, the Corporation tried to get an injunction in the High Court to compel Roches Stores to restore the remainder of the house as per the planning conditions.

They hadn't taken effective action over the developers' refusal to abide by undertakings they had given to retain the one house and to spend £20,000 on essential repairs.

A quote from the final judgement reads: It appears to me that the developers have been completely indifferent to, or perhaps have even welcomed, this deterioration in the condition of the building, and have done virtually nothing to halt it.

On 4 November 1983, in the early hours of the morning the shell of Frescati was razed to the ground, ending a campaign which had lasted almost thirteen years.

Frescati's end was summarised in a letter by Aidan Kelly, which appeared in the Irish Independent: Softly, well before the winter dawn, the yellow monster lurched towards the grey façade.

A lone rook stirred in the tall beeches nearby, troubled by the relentless purring of powerful motors.

A long time later, in the dull light of the November morning, early shoppers passed along, wrapped in the world of their own concerns.

Maybe our small and selfish minds, our furtive Irish ways, our ready response to the turning of a coin, could never grasp the natural nobility and great sincerity of the man [Lord Edward Fitzgerald]!

The plaque commemorates Lord Edward FitzGerald, though the inscription contains factual inaccuracies, and it mentions that he "lived in Frascati [sic] House".

The boulder stands to the right of the pedestrian entrance to the Shopping Centre today, but hedges are often grown in front of it, making it barely visible to passers by.

In time of threat from unexpected raids by the Crown Militia from Dublin Castle, the course of the stream could well have formed an escape route.

[citation needed] The original tunnel which Emily had built to carry seawater to Frescati remains to this day; its whereabouts secret, and it has been blocked off.

The Frescati case was considered in the final stages of the Architectural Heritage (National Inventory) and Historic Monuments (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1998 and buildings with cultural importance are now afforded greater protection through the act as a result.

This legislation was exercised when Archer's Garage in the southern city centre, a listed building, was demolished illegally – the developers agreed to rebuild, and did so.