LARA BRADLEY and
RALPH RIEGEL
SHOPPERS may feel a twinge of nostalgia at the closure of Roches Stores, but the demise of one of Ireland's oldest retail brands is likely to see its famously reticent owners breathing a sigh of relief as they slide even further into a comfortable obscurity.

The Roches family hit the headlines last week after selling most of its empire to British giant Debenhams for €29m plus €18m a year in rent, but for decades the Irish dynasty has steadfastly shunned the normal publicity associated with running such a high-profile business.

More than any other of Cork's merchant prince clans, the Roches are known for fiercely protecting their privacy. The shutters came down in the early Seventies, at the height of the company's golden era, after its director was embroiled in an extraordinary love affair that scandalised the nation and brought disgrace to Roches Stores.

Stanley Roche was 43 in 1970 when he fell head-over-heels in love with a young decorating consultant, Heide Braun. Recently separated from his wife Cary, Stanley began a discreet affair with her friend Heide until her husband, Werner Braun, learned of it through an anonymous Christmas card.

The full scandal unfolded in the High Court in Dublin in June 1972, when Mr Braun sued Stanley Roche under the arcane law of Criminal Conversation. The country was titillated for days by reports coming from the court room of violence and infidelity towards Heide from her German husband, the sporty car given to her by her new love and intimate details of their sex lives.

Heide and Stanley lived together and had a small child. In the climate of the day, few eyebrows were raised when Mr Braun's counsel asked if this behaviour made his client "a pimp" in the eyes of all in Cork. Stanley Roche said he didn't recognise it as such and Heide refused to apologise for disgracing her husband.

The judge instructed the jury that a wife was regarded as a chattel "just as a thoroughbred mare or cow" and that Mr Braun was entitled to compensation for his loss. He was awarded £12,000 - a hefty sum equal to the cost of a substantial family home at the time.

Now in their twilight years, Stanley and Heide are still together and live in Oysterhaven, Co Cork, where they are said to be "inseparable" and "very much in love". Stanley is known to give generously to charities but always at the insistence that his donations are kept a closely guarded secret.

The Roches family dusted themselves down, but more bad publicity followed when there was bitter outcry over their plans to demolish Frescati House in Blackrock. The

BUSINESS

famous home of Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the United Irishman martyr, became emblematic of a war to preserve Irish heritage that continues unabated to this day.

After a 13-year battle, the historic mansion was finally demolished overnight in November 1983 by a company controlled by Roches Stores, and is now the site of the Frascati Shopping Centre.

The Roches Stores businesses are unlimited-liability companies - a strategy that means the directors risk losing everything, but they have no obligation to publish accounts, making it difficult to estimate their true wealth.

The hugely successful empire was founded by William Roche, a farmer's son who had trained in Cork's most famous department store, Cash's (now Brown Thomas). After the major setback of seeing his premises burned during the infamous attack on Cork by the Black and Tans in 1920, William Roche's business took off.

By the late Twenties, the family were able to buy a key premises on Henry Street in Dublin - and, 10 years later, added another major shop in Limerick to their operation.

After William's death on the eve of the Second World War, the family fortunes continued to soar under the guidance of his widow Kathleen, who ran the business until her son, William Jnr, was able to take the reins himself.

William Jnr worked in the family business since 1937, two years before his father's death, and was later joined by his two younger brothers, Raymond and Stanley.

By 1950, all three brothers were working with the family business, which switched in emphasis from Cork to Dublin. William Jnr ran the increasingly important Dublin operation while his two younger brothers gravitated towards the provinces, Stanley taking the helm in Cork and Raymond in Limerick.

In the 1960s and Seventies the operation grew to include Galway and various booming suburbs such as Wilton in Cork and Blackrock in Dublin. By now, their operation was financially directed from the Isle of Man - a fact which ensured that no accounts ever had to be published in Ireland.

Control of the firm remained firmly within the family though scions of the Roches emigrated both to England and America. Ownership - particularly of the keynote properties in Cork, Limerick and Dublin which underpin the retail operations - remain vested in William Roche's three children and their descendants.

Those who know the Roche family describe them as "family-orientated", "hard-working" and, of course, "determined to keep a low profile".