I should’ve been in the Stardust that night
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GAME of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham has said he “should have been” at the Stardust nightclub the night that 48 people died in the catastrophic fire.
The Dubliner said it was a “disgrace” the families had to wait 43 years for an apology and paid tribute to late RTE broadcaster Charlie Bird who campaigned for the victims.
Taoiseach Simon Harris delivered a
State apology to the Stardust victims in the Dail on Tuesday, just days after the Dublin District Coroner’s Court returned unlawful killing verdicts.
Mr Cunningham, who was speaking at the launch of People Before Profit’s European Election manifesto in Dublin yesterday, told how his sister was at the nightclub on Valentine’s night in 1981 when the fire broke out.
He went to the Mater Hospital to search for her and later located her at the Jervis Street Hospital. The 62-yearold said: “I should have been in the Stardust that night. In fact, I was out on my motorbike and I managed to find my sister and her best friend in Jervis Street Hospital, before it was a shopping centre.
“My older sister should have been there but she was waylaid and went to a party instead.
“I witnessed that kind of abandonment by the State, of which they apologised for yesterday, of these
unfortunate people.”
Mr Cunningham also paid tribute to Mr Bird who died in March from motor neurone disease just weeks before the verdicts.
He also accused Charlie Haughey, who was Taoiseach at the time of the fire, of “buying votes” and not helping the Stardust families.
He added: “Charlie Bird was magnificent. He stood up and said, ‘If this has happened in Donnybrook, if it had’ve been [Club] Anabel’s, it would have been sorted out in a couple of years.
“The working class of Coolock were abandoned under [Charlie] Haughey and his family members.
“It’s appalling that the people [they] were supposed to represent were essentially abandoned for 43 years.
“I couldn’t believe it that these people that we only ever saw knocking on the door when there was an election coming up… Charlie [Haughey] did it all the time. He bought a lawn
He was absolutely right..it took somebody like Charlie to say it
LIAM CUNNINGHAM DUBLIN YESTERDAY
mower for a woman across the road. He bought votes and when it came to it, he didn’t want to know.
“Charlie Bird was absolutely right. It was very, very difficult for the people from Coolock and the families and the victims to say if this had to happen and Donnybrook, it would have seemed like some sort of bad blow or chip on the shoulder, working-class thing. It took somebody like Charlie to say it because he was an honest broker.”
Mr Cunningham also called for a memorial to mark “the biggest loss of life in the State’s history” and said any compensation would be “tasteless to talk about now”. He added: “That would come down the line on the back of any criminal charges.”