Original subtitles

The scream's coming from inside.

We're trying to climb out windows and that, you know?

The bodies. Some of them had fallen apart.

It was like a fire in hell.

I said, Please God, help us, help us.

I thought, then, I had died.

All them people dead, like you know?

Everybody knew somebody.

As daylight came, we saw this shell and what had happened.

It It was like a morgue.

A lot of the people who were naturally trapped

seemed to be trying to get through the exit at the time,

and they just didn't make it.

It was as simple as that.

People heard about this on a radio and realised,

Well, my son and my daughter hasn't come home,

where are they?

(overlapping news broadcasts in different languages)

St. Valentine's Day, 1981, will be remembered in Dublin for ever.

And 700 terrified teenagers

were struggling for the windows and doors.

The firemen were appalled at what they saw.

Exits blocked with those who had suffocated

and those who had been knocked

to the ground in the fight for air and safety.

Eight minutes- All but five of the dead were taken to the city morgue.

It will take several hours before the bodies

are suitable for looking at.

Pat Dunne: A lot of stuff unfolded on the radio.

So I rang my brother Peter, then I said, Brian is not at home.

So I said, What are you thinking?

Have you been watching Stardust or listening to it?

He said, Yeah.

I said, I'm thinking slightly on those lines.

He said, I know he wanted to go,

but his boss wouldn't let him.

So he said, I'll ring the Sacks Hotel.

So he rang and he said, Yes, Brian went.

News Archive: ...the sorrows of the night, the loss of the young.

There were harrowing scenes of sadness, too,

at the hospitals all over the city.

As mothers and fathers went...

There were scenes of great-

Selina McDermott: I didn't see me mam and dad til late next morning

because they were still out looking for them.

They couldn't find them.

There was traffic in and out, in and out. Seen them,

No, we didn't see them. Somebody said they seen.

Somebody said they went to that hospital.

No, they went to that hospital.

Errol Buckley: I met up with the family.

We have to go and look Jimmy.

Jimmy is missing.

So we were hoping an ambulance took him.

So the family just started searching all the hospitals.

You were seeing people in hospital, like, other people that you knew.

And I said, Did you see Jimmy?

He said, No, Jaysus no. I didn't see him.

You could check into the hospital and they had some sort of names.

And they would just say, No, there's nothing there.

They are seriously burnt.

They're suffering from burns.

Yes, they're all burns.

And some patients,

as is usual in a big accident of this kind,

a big burning accident,

they have burn damage to their lungs

as well as to the surface of the body.

Tony McCullough: In the hospitals, it was complete roulette in terms of

nobody had any information.

So parents went from one hospital to the next.

In some cases, they didn't even recognise

their children because they were covered in soot

or they were very badly burned.

I managed to make it to the main door

where there was about, I think there was about

100 people there with me.

I was pushed back, and therefore my hands was...

My whole body had to fell into a fire,

which was coming in,

and nobody could breathe for about three minutes.

I don't know how any of us lasted.

Honestly, I don't.

It's been just a horrifying experience for us all.

Selina McDermott: Willy was found first.

They found him at the hospital.

There wasn't much of a scratch on Willy.

It was all fumes.

Willy had died.

I remember my mother, she fell to the ground.

She was at home, and she said the other two aren't coming back.

Pat Dunne: My brother Peter rang back and said,

We're going to do the hospitals.

So they spoke, I think, to a guard maybe or something

in the hospital, said, try the morgue, and Peter goes,

Why the morgue?

She said, Well, you haven't found him in any of the hospitals.

News Archive: The morgue isn't big enough for a disaster of the size,

and the bodies, half of the male, half female,

have been led out in a tent erected the rear of the red brick building.

Dr. Patrick Bofin: Because of the extent of the burns,

identification is a great problem.

If relatives are coming here,

I would like if they could have as detailed a description,

not just of the deceased, but of what clothing they're wearing,

what jewellery they have, earrings, tattoo marks, and things like that.

Have you any idea of many relatives have contacted you at this stage?

Oh, several hundred. Pardon?

Several hundred. Several hundred?

Yes.

Maurice McHugh: My wife, Phyllis, and I

were invited to a wedding in Manchester.

Our daughter, Caroline, she didn't want to go.

So when we were in Manchester,

the house was very busy the following morning

they were all getting ready for the wedding.

So we decided what we do, we'd go up

the local shopping centre just to get offside, to be honest.

We went up, we're only up there 10

minutes when Phyllis' uncle came, ashen faced.

Out of bad news, he says,

there's had to be a fire in the Stardust in Dublin,

and Caroline is missing.

We started making a phone call from a coin box back to Dublin.

And eventually we got through to Phyllis's brother-in-law.

Bobby said, Look, we think Caroline's in the morgue.

Just like that.

And we're not 100% sure.

Then Maurice said, We better go back to the house.

I'll never forget it now.

Everybody was devastated.

The bride was devastated.

And it wasn't fair on the bride. And then we just went then.

It was very hard to get a flight home.

News Archive: Many victims never got as far as hospital.

And for their families,

the tragic loss was compounded by the grim need for identification.

Garda Frank Cullinane: I was detailed to mind bodies,

like they were taken into the morgue...

16, 17, 18 years of age.

So many.

I see them, they all lined up on the slabs.

A couple of hours earlier,

they were probably the heart and soul of the party.

News Archive: A steady stream of relatives and friends

have been calling at the morgue since 10 o'clock this morning.

Priests from several city parishes have been there.

For the families that had to come and identify them,

it was absolutely terrible.

Dr. Patrick Bofin: And I would hope that

we would have everybody identified here.

That's my hope.

To the Garda in Stowe Street, people were out of their minds,

all praying that they would not find their sons or daughters.

Tony McCullough: The were just incredibly emotional scenes

with mothers and fathers breaking down in tears.

A Garda said, I could hear people screaming

through our radio in the police station.

Many of them weren't allowed to go in to

see their children because of the extent of the injuries,

but they were presented in some cases with items of clothing

or items of jewellery to try

help identify the bodies of their children.

I talked to the City coroner, Dr. PJ Bofin.

Some people had a lot of clothing,

perfectly identifiable, and others weren't.

Or didn't have any clothing.

There was a queue for the morgue.

I think there was a young guard there and a nun inside.

Peter went up and down the rows a few times and then stopped on a bundle.

There was the buckle of the belt and a piece of jumper,

a wine-colored v-neck jumper, and I think a shoe.

And then walked up and down again.

And there was the young guard who was only a kid at the time.

And he said, I see you stopping at this particular bundle all the time.

And Peter said, But that's not Brian.

So he said, Do you recognise anything? And he said, Yes.

The belt he did go for the birthday in Zurich,

and a piece of jumper, a piece of shoe.

They were searching for a person rather than what was there.

So the young guard then said to Peter,

I think you should settle for what's there.

And he rang me then and he said, We found him.

He's here.

Maurice McHugh: The nearest place we get a flight from was Liverpool.

So what we did, we drove down to Liverpool.

And as we were driving down there,

there wasn't a word spoken in the car.

As storm broke, small crowds gathered outside the club.

Unable to grasp the enormity of the tragedy that had occurred.

Eventually, we got back to Dublin about half eight that night,

and we went down to the morgue and we were

greeted by a detective, and there was a nun there as well.

They said, Listen, we think we've Caroline here.

And then we were handed a little bit of an envelope,

and in it was a chain, her name, Caroline,

a little bit of the watch, a pocket for her jeans,

which she had a comb in it

because she had very good hair and she loved her hair.

The comb was melted into the pocket,

and we were handed that, and she was number 6.

Bagged and tied, number 6.

No names, no nothing.

That upset us as well.

But the advised at that stage

not to see Caroline's remains because she was so badly burned.

News Archive: ...many were trapped.

A disaster of dreadful proportions was taking place.

The areas of Coolock, Donnycarney,

Artane devastated. Their young,

the pride of their families

taken swiftly, cruelly from them.

Errol Buckley: The police go after the door in Donnycarney

They said, You can come down to the morgue.

We think we have Jimmy - I think it was on Tuesday -

so we found out then, like, you know? That was it then.

We knew what had happened.

And there was a general panic where friends and brothers and sisters

and boyfriends were trying to get into a fire to their friends.

They didn't know where they were.

Selina McDermott: They found George at the morgue.

It was the same with Marcella.

With Marcella, the dental work that she had got done,

and that's how they knew it was Marcella.

And then they just told my mother.

That the three of them were gone.

I just couldn't believe it.

It took three.

Three of my kids.

You know, that just went out to enjoy themselves.

Yeah.

Can't remember the day after.

I just know I went out into the alley,

as we call it,

and the doctor had given me sleeping tablets, and so I just wanted to go.

I did. I wanted to go.

Antoinette Keegan: They checked all the hospitals

and eventually they found me in Dr Steevens' hospital.

And they walked straight past me.

And then I'm like that, (quietly) "Ma..."

trying to call me ma and me da, and they can't hear me.

I have this thing on my face.

So then they went over and asked the doctor where I was.

And then I knew when I seen them coming

towards me by the expression on their face, right,

that I was a horrible sight.

My hair now was burned, my face was burned, it was black,

and all the things, the droppings was all stuck on it.

My hands was in plastic gloves with white cream all over them.

And then the doctor called me ma and da over

and just whispered, You do not tell her any bad news.

But just letting you know it's 50/50 for her to survive.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick: Mam and dad were going from hospital to hospital,

but the nuns were frantic,

trying to give out their names and getting confused.

They were looking for James Fitzpatrick,

where everyone knew me as Jimmy Fitzpatrick.

So when they brought my mam and dad in to see me.

My mam said, "That's not Jimmy." She couldn't recognise me.

I was swelled up. But they bathed me eyes open.

And when I opened my eyes, my mam goes, "That's him."

What a horrible thing for any parent to have to go through.

News Archive: For the injured, too, there was shock,

news of lost friends,

and a dawning realisation of their own serious injuries.

The pavements were strewn with injured bodies,

some beyond any hope,

some who would live to tell of their nightmare.

(sirens)

Valerie Deasy: For a few days, they didn't know where I was,

but they eventually found me,

and I was in a coma in Jervis Street.

So I was alive.

So many of the other families didn't have that bonus

of finding a family member and actually finding them alive, so...

You're thinking, did we all make it?

Did we all get out?

You know? And I wasn't hearing any names.

And none of my friends were coming to see me.

My dad, on the Tuesday, said, I want to go down and see him.

Mam I said, I'd like to see him as well.

I said, he's kinda bruised.

So I said, The undertaker said to me for the best not to see him.

So dad then went... lost the plot.

I need to see my son dead.

So I said, No, you can't. So I said, When we go down

to the undertaker's, it's going to be closed, the coffin.

So down to the undertakers, he lost the plot again.

Mam just silently sobbed and shook.

And there was really nothing of Ryan there.

Mam and dad never knew that.

And there was nothing went in the coffin.

No kid went in at all.

News Archive: Most of the victims who died in the Stardust

were in their late teens.

We were in such grief at the time that we

just went along with everything they told us to do.

We were told that Caroline was down in the funeral home,

and that she was coffined.

The coffins were all closed up.

We I hadn't got a choice.

They were all in a line.

I never forget, I can still see it.

So when we went down, actually,

we wouldn't open the coffin, and they wouldn't open the coffin.

So after that then, we started to make arrangements for the funeral.

News Archive: Most of the victims of the fire

would be buried at the Sutton Cemetery,

where many of the new graves are just within yards of each other.

It was incredible the impact just geographically.

So many of the victims came from

within a one-a-while radius of the Stardust itself.

The concentration of death and injury was absolutely incredible.

The grief was very overbearing for people.

News Archive: Scenes of grief seen earlier

at the funeral of Brian Hobbes from Whitehall.

Hundreds of mourners had to stand

outside of the church because of the size of the crowd inside.

Pat Dunne: People, because it was the first funeral,

wanted to see what was going on.

Loads of press, loads of photographers.

Some that got a little bit nasty in the sense that

when the coffin was being taken out, could you stand holding it?

Could people stand at it?

When we looked at the news,

it was happening to somebody else,

and the funeral, they say, was definitely somebody else's.

People were there, and you look at the families,

and cameras were on them.

They were focus of attention.

They just went through the motions.

I don't think they realised what was actually happening.

Archive: There seems to be something almost unnatural

about parents who bury their children,

the young people who have lost their lives...

...for others, they could barely hold back their grief.

I think Jimmy got buried on the Thursday.

There was about three or four funerals on that day.

We knew a lot of people that died.

I didn't even know what I'd done afterwards,

just talked to a few people.

I said, "What did we do after Jimmy's funeral?"

They said you went to another one.

All week we were just going to funerals like, you know?

Jaysus. Unbelievable, unbelievable.

News Archive: The small church was full,

with many mourners having to stand outside in the cold, bitter wind.

Charlie Bird: T'was a cold winter.

And just to see the agony and the awfulness of the hearses

leaving the churches, and the relatives.

It was just... it was horrendous.

News Archive: Many among them wept as the coffins were being removed.

Two more victims were also buried today.

What those families went through.

It was a nightmare.

News Archive: For one family, the McDermotts,

three of their children - Willy, Marcella, and George

- perished together in the fire.

The enormity of this loss has devastated the McDermott household.

My mother doesn't remember burying them.

And she always regrets that.

She always said she felt that they didn't

give her time to be in that moment for them,

at the funeral, because everything was taken over.

When we went to the funeral for Jim McDermott's children,

we were all in uniform.

Jim was an experienced firefighter,

and he understood what was involved for each of his children.

He knew too much.

We just offered as much support as you possibly could,

but you feel that that's a minimum contribution that you can make.

That's all.

My mother and father wanted all Marcella's friends

to carry her coffin, and they all turned up all spruced up.

God loved them, immaculate.

But my mother told them to go home and change into all their

Doc Martens because they were all skinheads.

So they all came back in their Crombie coats, Doc Martens.

News Archive: All three are buried in the same grave.

Their suffering goes on... Hundreds of reeds were placed on the graves.

At the graveside, local parish priest...

My mother and father was visiting me every day.

And like I was saying, "Mary and Martina, where are they?"

My ma... they used to always say, "Mary's okay. She's grand.

She's in the Mater Hospital, and Martina is in the Meath Hospital."

I wasn't allowed a newspaper, a television, a radio.

News Archive: As the fire raged, young people rushed for the exits,

stumbling over each other in panic and confusion.

In the frantic search for friends and relatives...

I had to wake up most mornings,

they had to less sedate me every day because your lungs

would be affected from the anaesthetic.

So every time they less sedate me,

the pain was more because they're now taking bandages,

not off your skin,

but it's all for your veins and your nerves and your muscle.

So you're looking at your hands and arms without any skin.

Like that's traumatic. You know?

I do remember at one stage,

opening my eyes and it was a priest giving me the last rites.

And then I was aware of being moved on a trolley.

So I was put up into intensive care.

(wheels rolling)

They slit all my arms first because the arms had all swelled all out,

and they were going to burst.

And then that was it.

I ended up in a coma for 10 days.

So no knowledge of the destruction that had happened in the Stardust.

I didn't know whether my sister was alive or dead.

This particular day, a priest came in and he goes, "What's your name?"

"Oh, that's right," he said.

Your two sisters were killed.

And I went, "No, they weren't.

They weren't." Right?

And I went in to hysterics, crying.

I just couldn't believe it.

News Archive: This funeral, perhaps as much as any of them,

summed up the horror of Stardust.

Four friends attended the disco,

only one survived, and she's still in hospital.

So when me ma and da came in, I said to me ma, "Is it true?"

She said, "It is, Antoinette. I'm sorry."

And I said, "Why didn't yous tell me?

Why did yiz tell me a lie?"

She said, "We had no choice.

We had to tell you a lie to keep it alive."

News Archive: But in the one square mile around Artane and Coolock,

this agonising procession was repeated 17 times today

to five different cemeteries.

Those who now mourn... In an emotional and moving scene,

the coffins were placed in graves alongside one another...

In the case of five victims, they were never able to be formally

identified at the time due to the extent of the injuries.

And they were buried in St. Fintan's Cemetery.

News Archive: Relatives and friends of those still missing

stood around the long line of open graves in silence.

The Auxiliary bishops of Dublin, Dr. James Kavanagh

and Dermot O'Mahony officiated at the graveside.

I remembered the headline, Oh Jesus, Why?

And I think it encapsulated everything

because it was too early to point a finger, to ask questions.

What happened?

But at the same time, that headline did ask the question, why?

Charlie Bird Archive: This is one of the exit signs

over one of the emergency outlets at the side of the building

where some of the dead and injured were found.

The experts have been closely examining this door

and others like it.

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

These and other questions will have to be answered.

All the doors have chains on them,

and the chains are hanging on the doors open.

When the chains are taken off the doors,

when we open at night time, they're hanging on one side.

So the chains and the locks cannot be mixed up,

but they're not actually locking the door.

The door can be pushed open.

Many people seem to have been trapped in the toilets area.

Was there an exit near the toilets area?

Yeah, there was an exit near the toilets area.

You're sure it was open?

I'm positive it was open, yeah.

One of the staff had said that he'd gone around

and unlocked all the exits before the fire had happened.

And he said that on television, I think it was Today Tonight.

And I went around at about 9:20

and I opened up each and every one of them.

Each one with a separate key?

Each one with a separate key, yeah.

And when I finished opening them,

I went and I just put the keys back in the drawer

in the in the pay office in the Stardust.

A number of days later, he retracted that statement,

and he admitted that that was not the case,

and it was something that was heavily criticised.

What else did you notice around the exit?

There was tables up against one of the exits,

but he pushed them out of the way,

and tried to open it with the...

He was pushing it and wouldn't open.

He mustn't have had any keys on him

because it was a lock and chains around it.

Harriet Reilly remembers fleeing to exit number 4.

Red Skelton, an experienced fire engineer,

examined that same door for us.

If you study the face of this door,

it is carbonised over its full length.

It's quite heavy char.

In fact, the inside inside skin is burned right through,

but on the edge, it's quite clean.

This would seem to indicate that this door was closed.

Again, we have the char-free door frame

and inside edge of the door, indicating that it was closed.

But in this instance, the leaf of the door is untouched by fire,

except for some small swelling of the paint.

It would seem to indicate that the door was protected

from the fire by some solid object, possibly seating.

Of the many escape routes leading all the force...

Ken Curran: All of the interviews with witnesses

pointed to the doors being locked.

They were trapped.

Windows were barred.

And that became a common theme

from all reporters' accounts of what happened there.

No amount of force could free them.

So the focus shifted from the actual fire

and the aftermath of that to why did this happen?

Who is responsible for this?

Dublin Corporation were pretty quick out of the traps

in denying any responsibility for it, as were the Butterlys.

News Archive: The owner of the Stardust Club, Eamon Butterly,

was adamant he wasn't to blame.

My conscience is clear

in so far that I have done everything possible

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

The fire escapes are there.

Are you yourself, in your own mind,

ruling out the question of it being malicious?

No. You think it's possible?

Very possible.

Have you anything harder to go on than that?

No.

We'll have to make sure, first of all,

that this particular fire, tragedy,

is thoroughly and completely and fully investigated.

Charlie Haughey, within hours of the fire,

he had announced that there would be a tribunal

of inquiry and that there would be action.

So he acted quite promptly in terms of

setting up the tribunal after the fire.

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

They'll have full powers to summon witnesses

and command of attendance and demand answers? Yes.

Everything, yes.

The tribunal of inquiry,

it was organised very, very quickly,

and people drew some comfort from that,

that there would be answers and hopefully accountability.

Justice Ronan Keen was a high Court Judge.

He later became Chief Justice,

and he was appointed by the government to head up the tribunal.

Mr. Justice Ronan Keen was a highly respected judge.

His wife was the diarist Terry Keane,

and she was having an affair with Charles Haughey at that time.

Justice Keane was a highly respected judge,

and I don't think there was any doubt

on his credentials or his qualifications for the job.

Pat Dunne: Because it was set up so quick and because

who was set up by, he was doing everything and it was great.

And he would get to the bottom of it and that would be fine.

And there was proper barristers and whatever it may be,

and they would handle it all and tell us

what had happened at the end.

News Archive: How wide will the terms of reference be?

Will it relate only to the causes of this particular fire?

It will relate only to the causes of this particular fire,

but then also have power to make recommendations.

It was pushed through by Charlie Haughey immediately.

This is great.

He's gung ho.

He's going to get this sorted out.

We're going to get truth and justice.

The Stardust Tribunal first sat just a number of weeks

after the tragedy in 1981,

and it ran between March and November of that year

and interviewed hundreds of witnesses and experts.

Me mother and father was there every day.

Every single day, every single day.

I wouldn't go.

I didn't want to know anything about it.

They had a big map on the stands of the Stardust,

and to be honest with you,

you couldn't make head nor tail of the map.

They were asking us around the areas where the fire started.

Did you see anybody there?

They also had a red PVC chair,

and they asked us, did we see any damage done to the chair?

Was there anyone vandalising the chairs that night?

Did we see any rips in the chairs?

Did we see anybody hanging around messing.

News Archive: The Stardust inquiry goes into its 89th day tomorrow.

We didn't go to that tribunal, we kept away.

We just blocked it out of our head.

It was a form of escapism, if you like.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick: Well, I particularly wanted to be there

because I wanted to see Eamon Butterly's face

while I wheeled in in a wheelchair

because I actually wanted him to see

the damage that was caused to the people that survived

and the people that died.

News Archive: The Stardust Tribunal completed its 118th

day of hearing evidence about the disaster.

One of the key witnesses was Martin Donoghue.

He was the Inspector of Public Resorts for Dublin Corporation.

It was not his role to judge whether

a fire exit was safe or any fire regulations.

His role was to check the electrical installations of a premises.

But he had visited the Stardust on numerous occasions,

and he had raised numerous issues with the Butterlys.

He had noticed fire exits blocked.

At one stage, he'd noticed a fire exit was locked.

He had been at one event a month before,

and he was very concerned at the overcrowding at the venue.

He found it very difficult to move through.

Dublin Corporation raised all these issues in a letter to the Butterlys.

And Eamon Butterlys' response was

that he personally took great care to make sure

that the exits are clear when the public were on the premises.

News Archive: The public hearings of the Stardust Tribunal have ended.

The inquiry was set up to investigate

the Saint Valentine disco fire in which 48 people died.

It's reckoned to have been the longest tribunal

in Britain or Ireland, 122 days with over 300 witnesses

who give evidence totaling three....

The Stardust Relatives Committee have been giving

their considered reaction to the tribunal report

at a news conference in Dublin this morning.

The report was damning in its assessment

of Eamon Butterly's role on the night.

Mr. Butterly has again He was accused to be

interviewed on the question of the tribunal's findings.

It says that Eamon Butterly did not cooperate fully with the Gardaí.

Eamon Butterly was accused of showing reckless disregard

for the safety of the patrons by standing over

a policy where exits were locked at the Stardust

until at least midnight when the public were on the premises.

It found that on the night of the fire,

one exit was chained and locked at the time of the fire.

Some of the exits,

there were chains draped over the panic bar that you press to get out.

That gave the impression that they were locked.

Earlier at their news conference,

the relatives committee illustrated how they say

the report but showed that a chain on an unlocked door

effectively prevented it being opened.

Some of the exits were very, very badly obstructed.

Even outside,

people encountered a van parked directly outside one of the exits.

There was also a skip blocking an exit.

Another criticism was the building materials

that went into it were in breach of building bylaws.

For example, he used carpet tiles on the walls,

which were highly flammable

and was a major factor to the spread of the fire.

The carpet tiles were not intended to be used for wall coverings.

The report found there was insufficient

training given to staff

in how to deal with an emergency.

A few weeks before the fire,

the Butterlys had installed

steel bars and steel plates on the windows

of the toilets to prevent people

from passing through alcohol to their friends.

One of the most shocking aspects in the tribunal report

was in determining the cause of the fire,

the report said it was probable arson.

That was devastating for the families

because by saying that the fire was probable arson,

put the blame directly back onto the community

that had suffered and exonerated the Butterlys

and Dublin Corporation and the State

of any real responsibility for what happened.

The finding of probable arson was awful, absolutely awful.

It made people think then that, who did this?

It caused awful bad blood on the north side of town

that somebody, maybe in your estate,

on your road, had done this.

So the blame was apportioned in the wrong direction.

And a lot of people were regular ordinary people

that accepted what they had found initially because they were experts,

you see, we weren't.

They were actually blaming everybody

that was in that building that night.

People that were killed or people that survived.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick: It was a mockery to the victims and their families.

To have a case saying probable arson.

You can't say probable arson.

It's either arson or it isn't.

Maurice McHugh: What we got was our children were criminalised

as arsonists. Unbelievable.

You couldn't make it up.

Tony McCullagh: It said probable arson,

and it did say the cause of the fire

is not known and may never be known.

It would have been better had the report just come out

and said, We will never know the cause of the fire.

We haven't seen any evidence showing arson or equally,

we have no evidence to show that it was an electrical fault.

But to come down and say something that...

would really rankle with the families for years

to suggest somebody in there that night had maliciously

started a fire was an extraordinary inference to make.

I I don't believe that the guards

ever believed that the fire was caused by arson.

And I understand that the finding of the tribunal of probable arson

was greeted by surprise by a number of guards at the time.

So how come that they came to the conclusion

this was started deliberately?

Or did it fit a narrative at the time?

These people are living in a working class area.

A lot of them are unemployed.

You know, what else would they do?

It suited perhaps the agenda at the time.

Let's get this over and done with.

Now let's move on.

There's more important things that we have to focus on.

The report was highly critical of the State and the local authority,

in this case Dublin Corporation,

because the fire prevention department

in Dublin Corporation was hopelessly under resourced and understaffed.

These were all criticisms in terms of the State

and the local authority's responsibility where that lay.

The morale in Dublin Fire Brigade, notwithstanding the individual

acts of heroism on the night, was considered to be extremely low.

The lack of breathing apparatus was a major problem.

The breathing apparatus, there was two sets on every car.

There were six men on the car.

Your hands were burnt, and you had to handle body parts.

There were no gloves at that stage.

Tony McCullagh: The families felt that because the tribunal

was so damning in its criticism, that it opened the possibility

that the DPP would bring a prosecution for manslaughter.

But that didn't happen.

The DPP decided that there were insufficient grounds

to bring charges against anybody

in terms of the deaths of the people that night.

And that was a devastating finding.

They felt that nobody had been held

responsible for the loss of their children.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick: The finding of probable arson left the Butterlys

with the open opportunity to sue Dublin City Council.

Tony McCullagh: The Butterlys were very encouraged by remarks

that the fire was probably arson

because it bolstered their legal action that they were taking.

They were suing Dublin Corporation for malicious damages.

And when it went to court in 1983,

they were looking for something between £3 and £4 million.

But significantly, the court at that time went one step

further by determining that the fire actually was arson.

So it went from being probable arson to definitely arson,

and it allowed the butter lease to receive

almost £600,000 in compensation.

And this was years before any of the families

had received a penny or would receive a penny.

News Archive: Judge O'Hanrahan said as a matter of principle,

he would award the lower figure of £600,000 for reinstatement.

He wanted to save the ratepayers money.

Mr. Kinlan said a new claim of 30,000...

Selina McDermott: All these families, 48 dead kids,

the survivors that were still in hospital.

And then you had people that weren't in hospital but were

mentally disturbed by what they had gone through.

And he wins the case, £600,000.

I mean...

News Archive: Lawyers appearing before the tribunal

were paid a staggering £463,500 in fees.

The Butterlys won an award of £581,000,

but still, the real victims wait for some recompense.

The families were taking legal cases

against the State and against the owners of the Stardust,

but the cases faced being tied up in the courts for years.

The government of the day stepped in

and announced that there would be a compensation tribunal.

Those who took a case through the compensation tribunal,

they had to discontinue

any legal actions against the Butterlys or the State.

News Archive: The tribunal will offer cash awards

to any the 300 claimants who wish to apply.

If applicants decide to accept the tribunal's offer,

they must call off any other court proceedings.

At a compensation tribunal,

people applied for compensation for a range of things,

from very serious injuries to the death

of a relative.

For psychological trauma.

When you're in front of the panel,

there was a judge and then two barristers on either side.

You were told to strip off to show your scars.

That was degrading,

really degrading, that you had to stand

in front of three men to show them your injuries.

Phyllis Campbell: And they decided, we'll give you X amount.

But you were told, you don't speak about this again.

It's like they were giving you a sum of money

and you were giving them your voice.

They were the people that were up there.

And you were the mere peasant from Coolock.

Jimmy Fitzpatrick: Yes, I have burns in my arms and hands and shoulders.

And some of these are tendons that are burned out,

so I'm never going to get the flexibility

or I'm never going to get knuckles back on them.

But both of my legs, front and back, were donor the areas

where they took the skin off to put on me arms and hands..

So you had to strip basically to your underpants.

You just felt like a piece of meat.

It was horrible.

And what they gave you was peanuts.

Errol Buckley: You were told not to tell anybody.

I can't even tell you.

We were sort of like sworn to, don't tell anyone.

Or it'll be taken off ya, just like that.

And today, I don't know if I can still even tell you how much I got.

Tony McCullagh: The families were awarded £5,000

for the loss of a child, which was later increased to £7,500.

Selina McDermott: They were offered £5,000 for each child.

My mother was saying, If we take it, we can't go to court.

Then my father was saying,

if we fight ourselves with no money to fight.

It caused an awful lot of problems in the house.

And an awful lot of arguing, fighting.

They were so much in debt as it was

because of the funerals and everything.

And my father then not in work.

It was very, very messy.

Phyllis McHugh: We got 7 and a half grand.

That's what their compensation was.

7 and a half, pounds.

Punts, yeah. Punts, wherever they were.

It was unbelievable.

I mean, I couldn't...

You just couldn't believe it.

Mam didn't take it, in the beginning.

She said, One day, should I take it?

And Peter said, yeah, you need central heating

and you need new windows.

And the two of ye can't afford it.

So we said, just go and take it.

And you can always say, Brian's money was comforting in that sense.

So she took it afterwards.

So for his life, there was 7,500.

They always had that sense of guilt that

I was alive, and these people were all dead.

Every so often, mam would say to me, Do you think he's somewhere?

Do you think he could be in London or something?

No, he's not.

Antoinette Keegan: I would drink all night and sleep all day.

That's why I just had to get out of country.

It was our view that an inquest could be used

to establish the truth.

He said, The attorney general has to order the inquest to be opened.

Brilliant, brilliant.

Many know that this is the last gasp saloon.

Hopefully this inquest will give us justice and we get the truth.

If you got truth, at least it will be something.

That's all we want, the truth we don't want anything else.

Pat Dunne: I need to know why, and I want justice ordered.

Selina McDermott: That it would be unlawful killing.

That's what we hope, because that's what it was.

The evidence speaks for itself.

And if the jury do establish the truth,

justice will be done for these families.

Subtitling RTÉ 2024.