All language subtitles for Stardust.2024.S01E01.Fire.1080p.RTE.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-playWEB_track3_[eng]

(Clock ticking)

RADIO: Good morning.
It's 07:00 on Thursday the 18 April.

And on this morning's programme more
than

40 years later, the coroner's court
gives its verdict today on the
Stardust fire.

The jury has no now reached majority
verdicts, and they'll be read out at
02:00 today.

Are we getting in now?

Just get my jacket on, and
then we're ready to roll.

It's 43 years this year.

Now you all ready?

The long wait.

Please God, we get
justice for our children.

Yeah.

And what more can I say than that?

Everybody was buzzing to be going to

the Stardust on Valentine's
night at a disco competition.

Great spot, very entertaining.

Was the place to go on the
Northside.

Everybody kind of knew each other,

there was a great camaraderie
of the place, you know.

I noticed smoke just
drifting across the ceiling.

The DJ announced 'there's
a small fire on the premises'.

You know, 'don't panic'.

It's like a door was open
and the fire just went.

I was in Tara Street fire station.

The phone rang.

'I'm in the Stardust',

he said, 'premises is on fire.'

He said, 'take this very,
very, very seriously.'

It was like Dante's Inferno.

REPORTER: The church was full.

But in the 1 square mile around
Artane and Coolock,

this agonising procession
was repeated 17 times today.

The focus shifted.

Why did this happen?

The interviews with witnesses
pointed to the doors being locked.

They were trapped.

Windows were barred.

Council is clear in so far,

that I've done everything possible

from the day that place opened
to make it as safe as possible.

The judge said it was probably arson,
and exonerated the Butterlys

and Dublin Corporation and the state
of any real responsibility for what
happened.

Our children were criminalised
as arsonists.

It made people think
then 'who did this?'

Relatives are holding a vigilant has
been.

As a result of families picketing,
standing out in the cold.

Some of them have sadly passed away.

Then achieved a fresh inquest
after the decades of campaigning.

The Stardust families were treated
like dirt,

and there's no other way to put it.

They wanted us to just go away and
forget about it.

But we didn't go away to forget
about it.

It's for some official real day
that the inquest is actually
starting.

So it's a big, big day for us
families.

And we hope at the end
of this inquest,

that we get to know what
really happened on that night.

Valentine's morning.

It heralds the beginning
of finding justice.

(Siren wails)

I Love You You More Than I Can Say
- Leo Sayer

I love you more than I can say

With the killing of three more UDR
men,

the total number of people killed
in the North, has risen to 2,001.

Ireland was a troubled state in
1981.

First of all, you had the Troubles.

This attack is the latest in a
series

on prominent republicans
and H Block campaigners.

The signs of emigration were
everywhere.

There was lots of emigration
for many people.

The latest emigration figures
raised

fears of a return to the bleak
decade of the fifties.

Huge unemployment, a deep recession.

Dank, dirty.

Those who had jobs were very lucky
to have them,

but they were being taxed to up to
65%.

Listen, Charlie...the divil you know
is better than the divil you don't
know!

The Taoiseach got the time was
Charles Haughey.

Am I just another guy?
(Cheering)

Stardust was in his constituency
of Dublin, North Central.

I miss you more than I can

Charlie he always led the poll.

He had a way of looking after
people, and therefore they voted for
him.

Oh, oh, I love you more than I
can say

Coolock, Artane and Darndale,
were big working class areas.

Some of the people who were living
there had moved out from the centre
of Dublin.

This constituency is, in the main,
a working class constituency.

A lot of people had more, more than
four, five, six in their family.

They were all quite big families.

We had road leagues and community
projects.

We put buntings out when Dublin was
playing, when the pope was coming.

People minded people.

It was a great area to grow up in.

Every neighbour would know,
every child on their road, kind of
thing, growing up.

It had 90,000 people at that time,

it was a well established
residential area with some
industrial areas as well.

When I got married,

we lived in town for a while, and
then we got a house in Edenmore.

After being living in the city,
it was completely a different world.

I loved Edenmore.

And my neighbours...they were
brilliant neighbours.

So mother was delighted, she was
thrilled to have her own home,

you know, and her back
garden and front garden.

There was eight kids from the
family.

I was the youngest.

We didn't have much, you know, and,
like,

very few people had a car and
there's no phones and that type of
thing.

But as regards to, like, if anybody
was short of anything, you always
helped out.

Doo-doo-doo, da-da-da, is all I
want to say to you.

There was twelve in the family,
including my mum and dad.

We all grew up in Donnycarney.

Two bedroom house, ten children.

Absolute mayhem.

My dad died when I was 14.

My ma, she actually moved down to
the country, then down to Offaly.

My brother Jimmy, when he got
married,

he stayed in the house with us
because he wanted to look after me.

I was still going to school and the
rest were all just working and that,
you know,

He had a little band going in the
house, so the house was busy, busy
all the time, like you know.

Tell me why...I don't like Mondays

Tell me why...I don't like Mondays

I was 13 when my brother Brian was
born.

He was a surprise baby,
my mother was 44.

And I remembers he brought him home
from hospital and she handed him to
me.

What will we call him?

And I don't know where it came from,
I said, 'how about Brian?'

She goes, 'yep.'
So that was it, he was Brian.

He was funny.

Chatterer, good looking.

Fancied himself no end growing up,
like, really no end,

he thought he was the bee's knees!

Caroline was very outgoing,
our only child.

She was nice looking girl,
and her hair was lovely.

She had beautiful hair, beautiful
hair.

And she really had.

She had plenty of friends.

They would go to local dance halls

and then they'd meet up and they'd
come to our house and our friends
would come in

and we had a record player
there.

And we actually built an extra room
on our house, for her to have her
friends in.

Ain't no stoppin' us now

What I remember of Willie,

he was a big lad, almost like my
father was a very big man.

I think he was 6' 7".

Yeah, he was huge.

Big fireman, you know.

Willie loved going out the weekend,

which they all did, I suppose,
back then, you know.

My mother idolised him,
absolutely...she idolised him!

George was what my mother would
always say

'a bloody rascal', you know, and
always getting into trouble with my
father.

And my mother would always stick up
for him

or hide him in the coal shed
or in the alleyo, you know, so funny.

He was always up to something.

Marcella, she had a fabulous group
of friends, so they used to always
meet up in town

in the Dandelion Market,
and they'd buy all their records and,

The Specials, she was into, and The
Beat.

Mirror in the bathroom, please talk
free,

The door is locked, just you and
me.

We got a house in Coolock. That was
in 1964.

So there was five girls and three
boys,

and my dad worked in Cadburys.

My mother worked in Cadburys for a
short while as well,

til she started having all the
babies.

Mary, she was the eldest in the
family.

If we got stuck on our homework,
she'd always help us.

Martina, I don't think there was one
fella in Coolock that didn't fancy
her,

she was absolutely gorgeous.

The Stardust.

Originally, it was a jam factory in
the seventies,

and at one stage Patrick Butterly,
who was the owner,

decided that he wanted to convert it
into Ireland's largest
entertainment complex.

And he set about doing that.

And there were various setbacks over
the years,

Dublin Corporation, refusing
planning permission.

So it was a long battle.

He didn't give up.

Any time he came up against the
brick wall, he appealed,

and eventually he got it over the
line.

Patrick Butterly and the Butterly
family, were from Rush in North
County Dublin

and he was involved in market
gardening

and that's where he made his money.

And in fact, it's something
he was very proud of.

Eamon Butterly was one
of Patrick Butterly's sons.

The entertainment element of the
business,

was managed
primarily by Eamon Butterly.

Eventually the Stardust opened
in March 1978, with a gala concert.

There were three main
elements to the building.

There was a pub called Silver Swan,

the Lantern Room, which was like a
restaurant/ cabaret lounge, and then
the main venue itself,

which was the Stardust, but as an
entertainment complex,

the Butterly's would boast at the
time that it was the largest

and most sophisticated of its,
of its kind in Ireland.

I'm never frightened or worried

You know I always get high

I heat up.
I heat up

I cool down.
I cool down

Don't let life get me down

Lots of big acts played in the
Stardust.

So myself and my friend decided to
go down and ask could we get a
job.

They said 'yeah'.

And we started to work there.

Pearls a singer.

We were lounge girls.
We would serve the drinks to the
tables, clear the glasses.

We would wear a white blouse, black
skirt.

We were supposed to sometimes but
yeah...that was our uniform.

Stardust was a great place.

Everyone headed there. It was a
good spot,

great spot, very entertaining. It
was the place to go on the
Northside.

In a nightclub

Upside down...boy you turn me,

Inside out, and round and round.

We'd been to the Stardust like many a
time.

But this particular night there's
a disco competition on and

it was Friday the 13th.

Call me

There was a big build up to it like,

for weeks we were all ringing one
another and were saying like, you
know 'what are you wearing?'

It was a K-Tel disco competition,

and I think there was a prize of 25
pound, right was the prize money.

It was a big deal.

And myself, my brother John and my
sisters Mary and Martina, were
all planning to go.

D.I.S.C.O.

Phyllis was invited
to a wedding in Manchester.

Caroline was invited to wedding
but she didn't want to go to
wedding,

'I don't want to go to a stupid
wedding,

'I want to stay my friends and go
to the dance in the Stardust.'

Her friend Anne Marie's mother said,
'look, you're only away for two
nights,

'I'll look after Caroline when
you're away.'

So we said okay, so we agreed to
that.

I'm coming out, I want the world to
know,

Got to let it show.

I was an apprentice butcher
in Superquinn, Northside and I was
16.

We'd a late night in the butchers.

Everybody as planning on the
night and when to go.

So get ready from work,
get over to the house, get a quick
wash,

get changed and then we meet the
guys down on the Artane Road just
on the way.

The winner takes it all

The loser standing small

There was competitions on every
week.

If you qualified, you went into the
final for the Stardust,

you know, it was fun,
it wasn't nothing serious.

You weren't going to be
a professional dancer,

if you wanted to carry it on,
you could carry it on, you know.

When I got into the finals,
my brother Jimmy was delighted for
me.

You should have stayed at home
yesterday.

I wasn't allowed go, I was actually
babysitting two kids

and I gave my sister the money,

and asked her (laughs) would she
mind them

just last minute decision
10:00, 'ah look, I'll go down.'

I wasn't dressed up like an adult.

I went in, trousers and
an anorak, but I got in.

All the dancers had to go up early,

so we had to go up early from the
house.

Yeah, you're wearing these mad
shirts and trousers and all that,
you know.

Bit freaky now, you know!
(Laughs)

I had a white shirt
and striped trousers on me,

thought I was the bees knees!

Look, I was with my girlfriend as
well like.

Keep away from our
door.

My brother Brian, a friend of his,
was actually taking part in the
competition,

and being Valentine's night the day
before,

he'd asked the boss could he have
time off,

and being Valentine's night,
in the hotel industry, he said 'no'.

So whether he looked at them
with the longing eyes or whatever,
maybe.

So the boss at about, I think,
was maybe midnight, and said, 'go'.

So he went. Now none of us knew he
was there.

I knew George was going.

I think George had a date,

because he was after putting on a
new shirt.

'Willie'...I says, 'you never go up
there'.

'No' he said, 'I'm going up'.

Marcella...she told my parents that
she was babysitting,

but I knew she was going to
stardust.

And, of course, 'don't
tell them they're going'.

And I hid her clothes for the
Stardust in alleyo.

So when she was going babysitting,
she went into the alleyo and got
her clothes

and then went over to her
friends and changed.

I didn't know...

Marcella had gone.

I wish they had never gone there
anyway.

Ooh-oh, ooh-oh

Everybody was buzzing, to be going to
the Stardust on Valentine's night

I'm in the mood for dancing

Most of the people that were in the
disco competition, we knew.

I'd a navy three piece suit, red
shirt, waistcoat...very Saturday
Night Fever of me!

And a tie. Which, obviously you lose
the tie the minute you get into any
place.

We went in, and the first thing we
noticed was the alcove,

shuttered off, where we normally sat
was all shut off.

Celebrate - Kool And The Gang

We all got in and then
my brother John, he was refused,

he was told he was too young.

John was 17, Martina was 16, she got
in,

and em... he went home.

But as we walked in,

I noticed that the left hand side,
which was the west alcove, was all
closed off.

And I found that was very, very
unusual.

Like in all the time I've been going
there, that has never been closed
off.

Never.

I had a glass of Harp. Now Mary had
Martini and Martina had a Babysham.

So we're just sitting there
and we were yapping away.

The competition started I think
it was about 01:00.

Well I talk about it, talk about
it, talk about .

There was about 25 of us in the
final

and they were taking two off each
time

we got picked out then again at the
end.

We were brought up on the stage and
says, 'these are the two winners of
the competition'.

And then the DJ took us into the
back,

he says, 'next week, will yous come
up,

'we're gonna give yous
your prizes and all?'

So the music started again.

Everyone's on the floor dancing.

It was after being a great night
up to that, like we got our sausage
and chips

that was included
in the admission fee, 3 pound.

Somewhere along where the dance
competition happened,

just about after that it just got
very warm,

and I noticed it getting
very warm.

Born...born to be alive

You see we're born

We were in the Lantern Rooms tidying
around, that function was coming to
an end.

One of the lounge staff come in to
say there was a fire in the Stardust.

And we went in to see.

I noticed smoke just
drifting across the ceiling

and I thought it was the DJ after
letting off the artificial smoke.

I paid no attention to it.

The DJ announced, 'there's a small
fire in the premises',

you know, 'don't panic,
everything's under control'.

I was down on the dance floor when
he said that,

and straight away I looked
around for my sister to see where
she was.

And I went up to her and said,
'come on, we better go'.

And she was saying 'sure it's
only a little fire'. We could
see it, it was in the corner.

It was on a seat.

That's what it looked like to me,
anyway.

Walked over and we were standing
quite close to the exits, but they
were chained.

This bouncer run in with a fire
extinguisher

and he lifted the shutter,

and there was a fire on one of the
seats in the alcove, which we would
have normally sat in.

He tried to tackle the fire, but
whatever way he was doing it, aiming
through the flame,

and eventually he dropped the fire
extinguisher, and he ran.

And then with that, it's like a door
was opened or a shutter

was pulled up or something,
and the fire just went.

(Distant sound of screaming and glass
breaking)

There was panic and mayhem, and then
the DJ was telling people not to
panic.

I just thought, that's it, I'm out
of here.

The flames was going across the
ceiling.

Then there was a gush, of fire.

And...

...it's like the material from the
ceiling was falling on fire.

The ceiling was starting to collapse.

It was coming down on top of us.

The DJ made another announcement then

for everyone to make their way
to the nearest exit.

We were running to and fro.

And...

we turned to go back to the kitchen
door that came through

and it was locked.

Me, Mary and Martina and my friend,
like, we had gone back and got
our coats and bags

from where we were sitting.

There was a rush of everyone trying
to get out

we were pushed to the ground
and we were trampled on.

And I just remember, like,
couldn't breathe right.

The smoke was choking us.

It was just like as though you
were in hell.

And the next thing, like,
I was knocked out unconscious.

(Phone rings)

I was in Tara Street Fire station.

The phone rang,

I answered the call.

The call was from a firefighter
by the name of John Fitzsimons.

'I'm in the Stardust',

he said, 'premises is on fire'.

He said, 'take this very,
very, very seriously'.

Basically, 'give us everything
you've got'.

Once we got the message
across, we were gone.

(Siren wails)

It was an inferno when I arrived.

I saw flames going up in the air,
coming through the roof.

I think at that stage,
the roof may have collapsed,

and I'd say the flames were 10 to
20 feet in the air, you know, above
the building.

Because of the inferno,

we could not go near the scene,
until the firemen had extinguished
the fire.

The lights went out,

people screaming,
(Sound of siren)

glasses smashed,

and the roars of the fire.

So we held onto each other

and we went through the bar.

Em...I slipped and fell.

Everyone was standing on me and
trampling on me.

But then I thought I had died,
because everything went deathly
silent,

there wasn't a sound,
and it was pitch black.

In the hallway, I knew I'd passed two
friends who were panicking

but they were going nowhere, and
screaming.

So I said, I know if I
don't go in, they're gone.

So I ran back in, and I just
flung them into the hall.

And as I turned to go, I fell.

Everybody was looking for people

that was the problem, you know.

People were coming back in through
the doors.

I'd fallen onto the carpet,

which was leading to the hallway.

But then then I realised, I'm back
on the dance floor,

I'm going the wrong way.

The smoke was thick, black smoke.
You could nearly chew it, it was
that thick.

But it was burning you at the same
time.

Every breath I took, I was putting
my hand over my face to keep

the breath in, and staying
down as low as possible.

But when I got up,
we ended up kicking this door open

and a chain bust open, and we
all ended up falling out.

We got out at the side of the exit
door,

it could be number four,
the way they had it marked.

I'm sure I had me girlfriend by the
hair,

'cause I had her right beside me, all
the way out.

And we got outside, my shirt was torn
off me, all down here.

I think everyone was sort of half
clothed,

wherever way we were pulling at each
other,

'cause, that was the only way out,
you know,

they could see probably a bit of a
light at the door and just climb to
get out.

I had Martina's white blouse on me
that night,

and a fella from outside seen
the white blouse, and he had to come

in and kick this hand here because
I was clung onto my sister.

He had kicked that hand, and then
dragged me out

and my face was burning,
my neck, my shoulders, me hands.

I was just like, I was screaming
with the pain.

I remember there was a pile of sand,
and I said I'd put my hands in it
cooled me down.

But when I done that,
I rubbed it into my hands and on my
face

it just started stinging,
me and I was screaming.

(Siren wails)

Then an ambulance man came up to me
and he said, 'you've got to get in
the ambulance'.

You could see like the light
coming from a door being opened.

And slowly but surely there was
people just pulling people out,

and eventually somebody pulled me
out.

There was this guy who worked in
the community centre, the youth
leaders.

And I went over to him and said,
'Mick, will you bring me home?'

I actually thought I was going to
sneak back into the house

and my mother wouldn't realise that
I'd been out.

So he said to me, 'who are you?'

because he didn't recognise me,

and I said, it's Valerie
Fallon'.

And he just asked me, 'what's that?'

And all the skin off my face
was here like a chicken.

And I kind of took it off and it was
in my hand and I just held it
in my hand, while we got in the car.

And he drove me into Jervis Street.

(Siren wails)

There was girls on fire coming out.

I think I threw sand on one of the
girls

because you were so in a panic,
they were looking for everybody, you
know.

We went around the Stardust about 7
times

looking for Jimmy, because
people said they seen him outside.

He was again running around.

There for about an hour and a half
looking for him.

And I said, 'he has to be gone off
in an ambulance or something

because he knew that place off the
bank of his hand, you know what I
mean?

(Siren wails)

Jim came running in, says he
'there's a fire in the
Stardust'.

Panic, and then every hell broke out
then.

Yeah, hell broke out, yeah.

So he ran in there and rang the fire
brigade, his colleagues,

and they told him it was a nasty one.

My father, he said, 'George and
Willie are there,

'and we have to get up to the
Stardust, and we know Marcella is
babysitting'.

And then I had to tell them,

I said, 'no, Marcella is at the
Stardust'.

And em...that's one thing I clearly
remember.

He came over and he picked me up

and he shook me,

and he said, 'what the fuck do you
mean?'

Excuse the language.

'What the fuck do you mean,
she's in the Stardust?'

And I said, 'yeah' I said, 'she's
not babysitting, she's gone.

'I hid her clothes in the alleyo'.

And he just dropped me down,

and they all just ran
out of my sister's house.

They just ran out...yeah.

We lived in a cul-de-sac,
so every second house,

somebody had, somebody that was up
in the Stardust.

When we got outside,

it was as bad outside.

The screams coming from inside, and
people that did go to exit doors had
no chance.

There was no way that they would
have got out those doors because
they were chained

and because...the toilet windows had
bars on.

There was no way out there.

'Jesus help us, get us out'...and
then silence.

(Siren wails)

Seeing people that you had spoke
to...

...couple of minutes beforehand...

...coming out.

Then there was...others trying to
get back in...

...'cause their families were in
there.

I was on D watch, and that's the
watch that was on in the night of
the Stardust.

I was in the North Strand.

And I arrived and seen all these
kids coming out,

and they were all like, nylon was
the thing at the time.

They were all there, their clothes
were all burned

There's only 500 gallons of water on
every fire engine,

and it'll only last for about ten
to 15 minutes max.

And my job was to find a hydrant.

Hydrant outside, car parked over it.

And someone said, 'there's a hydrant
across the road', so we had to cross
the road.

And if there was, it was
tarmacadamed off.

The officer said, 'Paul, forget it.

'It's a major rescue, get up there,
start doing what you can.

'Get the kids out.'

So I went up and I can
hear kids in the toilet.

So I shouted in to the kids,

'lie on the ground, smoke will rise
and it'll stop you from choking'.

But the toilet windows were blocked.

I remember getting the phone call
that night,

and my boss, he told me to get my
backside out to Artane,

there'd been a fire
in a disco called the Stardust.

I hadn't a clue where it was.

I remember jumping in my car
and going over Butt Bridge.

I just followed the ambulances
from there out to the Stardust.

(Siren wails)

I remember getting there and the fire
engines were still dousing the
Stardust.

And I remember the water
was freezing on the road.

It was so cold that particular
night, into the morning.

And it just stuck
in my head how cold it was.

So many people there, ambulances,
fire brigades, reporters, onlookers.

It was absolutely chaotic.

(Siren wails)

I remember arriving on Kilmore Road,

and I went over to fire officers,

and I just, they were working away,
and I was asking them, you know,
'were you inside?

'What did you see?'

One fire officer said to me,
'there's more than just a few dead'.

And he just walked away.

The ones we saved were the ones we
saved.

I remember going in one door,

and there was two girls, lying on
the staircase.

They were pronounced dead
almost at the beginning.

But the firemen were concentrating
on, rescuing the living.

You know, their bodies
could be moved at any time,

and it's a decision that nobody
should have to make.

I started talking to people then and
were saying 'there were doors
locked,

'we couldn't get out the windows.

'People were falling all over the
place'.

A lot of them said it was darkness,
that the lights went out.

The people themselves, the young
people,

I mean, some of them were
only 16 years of age.

They shouldn't have been there.

They realised how lucky they
were to have escaped this.

They didn't realise that they were
cut, they were bruised.

There were a lot of them
just looking for their friends.

And that impressed me because

even though they had escaped,
they weren't thinking of themselves,

they were thinking of where the
friends were,

because they hadn't a clue
where...what happened to them.

At that time, firefighters were
interchangeable with ambulance
duties.

I was doing ambulance duty that
night,

and I was met by the officer
in charge,

and he said to me, 'like, there's
already people here that you can take
to hospital'.

I mean, we were so outnumbered,
you know, it was unreal.

So it was just a question of closing
the doors and taking them off

and the ambulance was so full,

people sitting in the front,
people standing in the back,

and we were directed to James's
Hospital.

The firemen, they had to go
in and take out the bodies.

Some of them were, had fallen apart,

and they had to get them onto
blankets or whatever they had.

And because there were so many,

they were bringing them out,
dropping them down

and then we had a trail of
ambulances coming,

to take the bodies away down to the
morgue.

The third officer that was there,

he said, 'can you set up a temporary
morgue along the wall

'and just make sure everybody comes
out, put the body down there?'

And then my job was to hose them
down,

make sure, 'cause their
clothes were still burning.

(Siren wails in the distance)

The journey, because the ambulance
was so loaded, was a good deal
slower.

It couldn't be rushed.

Also, my colleague was trying to
carry out

as many dressings as he possibly
could to the people that were
burned.

It was very, very silent... shocked.

Obviously, there was ambulances,
everything turning up.

And this guy said, 'you better come
with me,'

he says, 'you're in a bad way'.

I said 'no I've got to go home
and tell my parents'.

He said 'no you need to come with
me'.

And he brought me down to the
ambulance,

and the only place available was
the front seat beside the driver.

And he brought me around the front
and says, 'you better take him',

he said, 'I can't take him in here',
he said 'you have to take him'.

The ambulance driver just looked at
me and says, 'fuck it, put him in'.

Pardon the French but,
he just said 'put him in'.

So, in I sat,

and he slammed the door

and then when shot off to the Mater
Hospital.

(Siren wails)

When I was a senior student nurse
at that time, I was 20,

and I remember being on a break,

and I heard this trolley,

and I looked outside,

and I thought it was
a black person sitting up on the
trolley.

But I learned afterwards,
it was a young girl.

Next minute all the phones were
ringing in all the wards.

(Phone rings)
And we got the message,

'all senior student nurses
head down to A&E.

'There's been a disaster.'

They were all my own age, a lot of
them,

and some of them were younger, 16,

em, they were just so young.

Went to try many hospitals,
every hospital along the way.

There was porters outside,
seeing the ambulance coming in,

and they were doing that to say,
the hospital is full.

So then I ended up, right, going to
St. James's and St. Vincent's.

And in the end, I ended up
in Doctor Steevens' Hospital,

that was the last hospital, right?

And I was admitted in there.

There was a lot of people in the
hospital,

and as I was looking at them, I was
saying to myself, 'oh my God, look
at them.

'They are really bad'.

I didn't realise they were doing the
same back to me,

because they couldn't recognise me.

I don't know if anybody
remembers Jarvis Street,

there was a tiny little car park,

it's really where the ambulances
went in.

But Mick drove into the car park,
and a security guy came out

and of course, he just took one look
at the two of us,

and we were black from head to toe.

And Mick was saying, 'there's
actually been a fire in the
Stardust,

'does anybody know?

'You know, we drove here.'

When I'm telling you that we were
talking, we were, like, not talking,

it was like gasping for air
when we were speaking,

so I don't know how much sense we
made or, you know, what they
understood what we

were telling them, but there was
more people going to come.

And then the doors opened,
and they just fell in the door.

The smell of smoke, I'll never
forget it.

And their greyed faces,
you know, from the smoke.

There were so many, you know,
we hadn't enough tourniquets.

And so I was squeezing the arm to
get up

the vein for the doctor
to get the cannula in.

And I took away my hand and the skin
on my hand of the person there.

I went into the Mater Hospital
and there was more ambulances
arriving,

and I was then up saying, giving
people seats and get that girl
over here.

And this doctor walked out and says,
'what's he doing up and about?

''Get him behind the curtain.

And they knocked me out,

and after that, weeks later,
I woke up in intensive care.

I was brought into Dr Steevens'
Hospital

and I was put to a cubicle
as everyone else was,

and I remember, like, you know,
I thought that we had been forgotten
about

because the curtain was pulled,
right, and

couldn't get off the bed, right,
I was in agony,

I couldn't breathe,
and my hands was hurting me,

I just kept doing that,

banging them out side of the
cubicle.

And trying to scream, but I'd no
voice.

(Lights flicker on and buzz)

And eventually somebody did come, a
doctor, and I was put on a life
support machine,

because one lung had collapsed on me

and the other lung was badly
damaged with smoke inhalation.

There was water everywhere.

There was a stench of that
acrid smell of burning.

There was no cordons or anything,

so we just walked up and, there was
a guard with a flashlight and he
just opened it

and I looked in.

Everything was just charred,
and the smell would knock you out.

It was like Dante's Inferno.

There were a group of people that
were

in a kind of a semicircle,
that had been obviously friends,

and they had obviously put their
arms around one another, put their
heads down

because of the speed of what went
on around them and all of that,

they really didn't have much
of an option for escape.

And basically what happened was they
had been fused together,

and you know, it was a gruesome
undertaking,

but they had to be separated

and it was a matter of breaking them
apart

as reasonably as possible.

And that's what we got involved in.

Yeah.

It was gruesome work.
Yeah.

Nobody walks away from that.

I got a phone call at home
that had been a fire.

The lights were all gone
and they want the place lit up.

We hooked up the generator,

which is a small trailer,
and loaded it with lights and off we
went.

We had to try and get our
generator in onto the floor.

So we parked beside the fire escape

and we went around to the
main door to get in,

see if we could we get the fire
escape door opened,
we couldn't,

it was chained up, you know.

so there was a Policeman
there from Santry

and he got his foot up to it and he
kicked it out, and the bar broke off.

And still, still chained, but the
bar broke off.

Well, there's a few firemen still
damping out bits of the fire,

but otherwise there was nobody in the
building, only us.

Remember me aunt saying that night,

is it really, really bad?'

She said 'half of Coolock is gone.'

It was a dream.

The whole thing is a dream or a
nightmare that was unfolding.

(News report beeping signal)

As dawn came

em you began to see the shell
of the Stardust,

you know, that charred and the smell
and the smoke was still rising from
it.

Well, in the early hours of the
morning, after most of the bodies
had been removed,

a Garda sergeant took me
into the Stardust club.

AUDIO CLIP: God Almighty.

The bar and Silver Swan,

they weren't touched at all,
just the Stardust itself. The whole
area.

And from 10:00 this morning,

relatives will begin the very
painful and difficult task
of identification.

In a way, we didn't know then what
the scale of the tragedy was,

of how many people had died
and the numbers who were injured.

Charlie Haughey arrives,

and the most bizarre thing of all,

we walked through the Stardust.

This affects inside with Charlie and
the inspectors.

We were allowed in,
talk about forensics.

It's the most bizarre thing,

we were actually allowed
to trudge through it.

REPORTER: Taoiseach, could I ask
you, indeed, is there any room for
suggestion,

or any room for suggestion that in
fact, this fire might have been
malicious?

Can you say? No.

I don't know anything
at all about that yet.

The Gardaí are here and they have no,
not yet come to any decision at all.

Taoiseach, have you a message
for the people in the area?

Em...

...this is my...

...this is my native parish, and

I would know, I know most, very, very
large number of the families
concerned.

Em...

Many of the parents, they woke up
and they saw

their child's bed hadn't been
slept in that night,

and in a panic, they did a run
around all the main hospitals,

hoping to find their children.

REPORTER: Now here with a look
at the morning papers, P.P. O'Reilly.

St Valentine's Day, 1981

will be remembered in Dublin
forever, as the Dublin papers cry
out in many words

and pictures the sorrows of the
night.

The loss of the young.

But every owner or manager of any
enterprise where the public gathers,

must be jolted and shocked into
checking at speed his or her own
responsibilities

should fire or other sudden disaster
strike.

Some extra devotion to
safety

must be wrenched from this
awful experience.

A steady stream of relatives and
friends have been calling at the
morgue since ten.

For the families that had to come
and identify them, it was
absolutely terrible.

(Tearfully)
It took three of my kids

who just went through to enjoy
themselves.

Where all the emergency exits open
at the time of the fire?

He was pushing it and wouldn't open.

All the doors have chains on them,
and the chains are hanging on the
doors open.

There will be a high court judge
presiding over the tribunal.

We thought this was great.
He's gung ho,

he's going to get this sorted out.

You can't say probable arson.

It's either arson or isn't.

And it allowed the Butterlys
to receive 600,000 pounds in
compensation.

600,000 punts,

I mean...

Hundreds more injured.

The hospitals and homes
littered with the casualties.

The areas of Coolock, Donycarney,
Artane,

devastated.

Their young, the pride of their
families,

the nations tomorrow, taken
swiftly, cruelly from them.
(Voice fades out)