Witness of Stardust fire describes speed with which it spread at inquests

One of the first people to see fire in the Stardust nightclub in north Dublin, in which 48 young people died in 1981, has described the speed with which it spread, and the ensuing panic, at inquests into the deaths.

Fresh inquests into the deaths of the 48, at the nightclub in Artane in the early hours of February 14th, 1981, are taking place following a recommendation in 2019 by then attorney general, Séamus Woulfe, that they should be opened.

Dermot O’Neill told Dublin Coroner’s Court he had been helping at the cash-desk on the night of the blaze.

He described delivering takings from the door to the kitchen manager and the main office, and then looking for the DJ to give him money owed. At about 1.25am he passed a screened-off area, known as the west alcove, and noticed nothing amiss.

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At 1.30am he was talking to Stardust manager Eamon Butterly for a few minutes in the venue’s adjoining Silver Swan bar. He returned to the main ballroom’s stage area to look for the DJ, and couldn’t find him. Returning to the bar he saw a bouncer lift one of the screens over the west alcove and a “small fire on a seat about three rows... from the [back] wall”. Flames were about 18 inches high and the length of a seat, but he thought it was containable, he said.

He went to the main exit, where he held open a door from the ballroom into the foyer for a minute.

“There was a rush at the cloakroom and [Joan] Barrett [cloakroom manager] called me over to help her. I then got a strong smell and I saw black smoke coming into the foyer. Just then the lights went out. I told the people who were there to keep moving and I helped Mrs Barrett from the cloakroom. At that stage there was a... free for all.

“I managed to get Mrs Barrett and myself out and I went across to the green opposite the main exit. From the time I left [the ballroom] and got into the [foyer] the smoke had taken over and there was panic. That’s as quickly as it happened... You’re talking two or three minutes. The smoke came across the ceiling and went ahead of me and there was panic in that area. Total panic.

“The lights failed... Then there was no point trying to get coats. There was a crush wall-to-wall of people.”

Joseph O’Connor, a patron who sometimes DJ’d at the club, described leaving for home at about 1am. He said he “caught up with” his girlfriend on the dance floor who was “talking to Phelim [Kinahan head of security]”.

“I could see she was telling him she had tried to get out and the doors, they were locked and the other had chairs up against it. Just then a doorman approached and said smoke was coming out from under the canvas [screening the west alcove]. Phelim said it was probably someone smoking... He then turned to us and said, ‘Look it is really busy now. Just go out the front door.’”

He said he believed his statement to gardaí, given on February 17th, 1981, in the aftermath of the fire had been changed, between being handwritten in his presence and typed up. He had not seen the typed version until recently.

He said there had been nine changes, including phrases and facts. Among these, he alleged on Tuesday, was that while he recalls saying he saw locks and chains on exit doors, in his typed statement he is quoted as also saying he did not know if they were locked as “I did not examine them”. This was “not the kind of phrase I would use”, he told the inquests.

Mr O’Connor is the second witness to suggest his statement had changed between giving it and it being typed up.

Shane Murphy, SC, for An Garda Síochána, asked whether it was “possible your recollection can dim or change” in the intervening 42 years.

“No. I can tell you anyone involved in the Stardust will never forget the Stardust to the day they die,” said Mr O’Connor.

James Shortall, a patron on the night, gave evidence of leaving at 1.40am and seeing no sign of fire inside, but seeing smoke through the roof when he went to get his car.