FAMILIES of the Stardust nightclub fire victims have described their panic when they first heard of the blaze — and their desperate attempts to find loved ones.
Many parents, siblings and friends headed straight to the venue, in Artane, Dublin, while others trawled the city’s hospitals in search of the stricken patrons who had attended the St Valentine’s Day ball in 1981.
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Tragically for many, their panic-stricken journeys across the city would end at the morgue. The blaze claimed the lives of 48 young people and injured more than 200, with the original tribunal ruling it was “probably started deliberately”.
That led to a 43-year fight for justice, which ended when a jury at Dublin Coroner’s Court ruled last month that the dead had all been unlawfully killed.
The immediate aftermath of the inferno and the heart-breaking search for victims is told in episode three of the Irish Sun podcast, the Stardust Tragedy — which is out today.
Maurice Frazer, whose sister Thelma and her boyfriend Michael Farrell would later be confirmed among the victims, said his father Arthur heard about the blaze first.
He told the podcast: “My father worked in Clonskeagh and he’d normally get up at half seven in the morning, and cycle in. We were all in bed.
“Next thing we heard — a thump. Somebody jumped out of bed. Our father was saying: ‘Where’s Thelma? Where’s Thelma?’ I said she’s probably out in our aunt Bernie’s house. Why? What’s happened? ‘Fire in the Stardust! Fire in the Stardust!’ That’s what he said and he was really, really upset.
“He basically woke us all up and it was a very serious situation. Dad had heard the news on his clock radio that there had been a fire in the Stardust. Everybody was trying to devise a plan, what to do next.
“Dad said he’d cycle around the hospitals and I think my older brother, Arthur, as well, would have cycled around with him.
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“Dad sent me and Mark, my other brother, out to Donnycarney to stay there and see if there’s any news, if there’s something we could do.
“It’s the era of no phones, so there’s very limited phone coverage. We were relying on our aunt’s next door neighbour to relay messages backwards and forwards.”
Maurice recalled Michael Farrell’s brother Patrick, who had also been in the Stardust that night, arriving at the house with his face completely blackened.
He said: “Our aunt and uncle were obviously very, very distraught. Then a knock on the door and we couldn’t believe it.
“In a way, it was sort of a funny situation because somebody with a blackened face knocks on the door and you’re taken aback and you say, oh, that’s Patrick. ‘I can’t find him’, Patrick said.
“Patrick was Michael’s brother, and he was there at the time, and he had a completely blackened face. He had lovely red hair, but it was sort of all dusty, full of dust and smoke.
“It didn’t look like him at the time. The seriousness of the situation really hit home then, when he said he couldn’t find them anywhere.
DECADES OF HELL – STARDUST TRAGEDY TIMELINE
THE families of the Stardust dead were forced to begin campaigning just days after the fire. They knew then, and would be reminded for the next 43 years, they would have to fight with everything they had.
FEBRUARY 14, 1981: A blaze rips through the Stardust nightclub, in Artane, north Dublin, killing 48 young people and injuring more than 200 others. It remains the worst fire disaster in the history of the State.
NOVEMBER 1981: A tribunal of inquiry into the tragedy, chaired by Mr Justice Ronan Keane, finds the blaze was “probably” caused by arson. The families reject the finding and start a decades-long campaign for a new inquiry.
MARCH 1982: Original inquests found that all 48 died from a combination of smoke inhalation and cyanide poisoning.
SEPTEMBER 1985: The government establishes a Compensation Tribunal to give ex-gratia payments to victims’ families and survivors. 823 people received just under £10.5million. The lives of the dead were valued at £7,500 each.
MARCH 2006: Campaigners march on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s office demanding new evidence be considered in a public inquiry.
APRIL 2007: The bodies of five victims — Richard Bennett, Michael French, Murtagh Kavanagh, Éamon Loughman and Paul Wade — are finally identified using DNA techniques.
JULY 2008: The Government appoints Paul Coffey SC to conduct an independent examination of the case for a reopened inquiry.
JANUARY 2009: The report rules out a new inquiry — but dismisses the probable arson verdict. Families declare a “victory for the dead”.
2013: Gardai open a criminal investigation into alleged perjury over evidence given by several witnesses at the 1981 tribunal.
FEBRUARY 2014: Two representatives of the Stardust families end a 24-hour occupation of Government Buildings after demanding to see then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
JANUARY 2016: The Director of Public Prosecutions says it will not mount a prosecution into alleged perjury by several witnesses at the 1981 tribunal.
FEBRUARY 2016: Families hold a protest at Dublin Coroner’s Court calling for the inquest into the 48 deaths to be reopened, saying they were given a cause of death but no verdict.
MARCH 2017: The Cabinet appoints retired judge Mr Justice Patrick McCartan to conduct a probe into the circumstances surrounding the tragedy and to rule whether a commission of investigation into the fire is warranted.
NOVEMBER 2017: Families reject the McCartan report’s recommendation that there should be no new inquiry, describing the tone of the report as “rude, aggressive and irrational” and they continue to demand a new inquest.
NOVEMBER 2018: Families say they have found new evidence and will petition the Attorney General for a new inquest. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tells the Dail the AG will give full consideration to their request.
FEBRUARY 14, 2019: On the 38th anniversary of the tragedy, a new plaque is unveiled at the site of the former Stardust nightclub, with the inscription “They Never Came Home”, and listing the names of the 48 dead.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019: Attorney General Seamus Woulfe contacts families of the victims to say an inquest will be held because of an “insufficiency of inquiry” in original inquests.
APRIL 25, 2023: After delays caused by Covid and a judicial review taken by the club owner Eamon Butterly in the High Court, the new inquest finally begins in the Pillar Room at the Rotunda Hospital, in Dublin.
APRIL 18, 2024: Verdicts are announced after the longest inquest in the history of the State.
The Irish Sun’s new podcast The Stardust Tragedy, from the creators of the Kinahans and the Making of a Detective podcasts, is out now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
“We all decided to go up to the Stardust. There were curtains — you couldn’t get near. But the smell — you could obviously smell burning.”
Like many victims, Michael and Thelma were identified from their charred watches and jewellery.
Gertrude Barrett, who lost her son Michael, 17, in the fire, described the chaos in Coolock Garda Station after she ran there in the night with her daughter Carole. She told the Irish Sun: “I remember a knock and somebody saying something like ‘the Stardust is gone’ and all I remember is sitting on the landing with a pair of jeans and a jacket and running down the stairs.
“I probably broke the four minute mile to Coolock. When I got to Coolock Garda Station I just went in and two young guards were there. I knew by the look of them they were traumatised — and all you were saying is ‘I’m looking for my son’.
“I still didn’t know what happened. A young lad, I remember, got in between me and Carole, and this poor lad, he was about 15, was looking for his sister. ‘I have to get me sister, I have to get her. My mammy said I wasn’t to come home without her’. I remember the two guards, they just looked lost. They had a piece of paper, pinned to a wall with names.
‘Did he say the morgue?’
“He looked at me and said something about you need to go to the morgue. I turned to Carole and said: ‘Carole, did he say the morgue?’
“And he said ‘oh yeah, you just go out there, turn right and go to the corner and you’ll get the bus.
“I opened the door and there was like a scene from a movie looking for extras.
“There were men in their bare feet, shoes in their hands, buttoning up shirts and they knew they couldn’t get in because it only took about six people and that little room was full.
“And we went down and we did get a bus. It still didn’t register because, to me, I was still running and all I was doing was looking for Michael. We were the first in, the barriers hadn’t been put up, the tent hadn’t come to take in bodies.
‘Wandering around in slow motion’
“We were in there and we were moved up to Store Street. It was like wandering around in slow motion. There was comings, there was goings and somebody might sob, you know, a cry, and then it would go quiet again.”
Siobhan Dunne, who lost her brother Liam, 18, recalled her father and brother Alan heading straight to the Stardust. She said: “My brother, to this day, was very affected by what he seen that night. That dreadful night. And he’s still very, very angry about it. Alan would have been 20 years of age.
“They came home and said there’s nothing left of the building, but couldn’t find Liam.
“Alan never said anybody was dead, but he had seen bodies. He didn’t say that to any of us.
“That was six that morning. Tony, my future husband, came over. Obviously, he heard his neighbour was missing and all our friends had gone there that night, and we were to meet him up there.
“So we went up through Coolock Avenue and said if we were heading up to the hospital and if we see anybody, we have to report back. So I think Tony got a phone number of somebody that had a phone on the road that could inform people if we found anybody.”
The podcast episode also features interviews with fireman Dermot Dowdall, the first responder on the scene, and Red Cross volunteer Paul Conway, who helped in the aftermath of the fire.
Episode Three of The Stardust Tragedy is out today on Spotify, Apple or other podcast services.
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