‘Pandemonium, then everything just went quiet’

Stardust patron recalls traumatic scene

AN attendee of the Stardust nightclub on the night of the blaze became emotional yesterday as she recalled how there was ‘pandemonium’ as those who’d escaped tried to help people still inside, before ‘everything went quiet’.

‘The silence just went through everyone that was outside... we knew what was basically happening,’ Paula Toner told the inquest into the tragedy.

The jury in the Dublin District Coroner’s Court also heard evidence from Paul Fitzmaurice, who

‘Flames shot out on top of me’

said he was burnt by flames that came down from the ceiling, causing him to fall down a staircase into a hallway where people were ‘being crushed’ as the main doors were closed. Mr Fitzmaurice had been in the company of Mary and Martina Keegan and David Morton, three of the 48 young people who died in the nightclub blaze in Artane on February 14, 1981.

In his original statement, read into the record by the court registrar, Mr Fitzmaurice said that at around 1.30am, he saw the fire along the back row of seats in an area of the nightclub that was previously shuttered off.

When he saw the fire, he got up to leave and as he approached the passageway leading to the main entrance, ‘panic broke out’.

He said he went up the stairs of the hallway but was met by flames. ‘The flames shot out on top of me. I immediately put my hands to my eyes, and it was then that I got burnt,’ he said.

He gave evidence that he was burnt on his face and both hands and his hair was singed.

In a second statement that was read into the record, Mr Fitzmaurice said that three or four weeks before the fire, he had been sitting in the west alcove of the Stardust when he noticed it was very hot, and he had to remove his jacket, jumper and tie. Mr Fitzmaurice, who was 16 at the time, told the jury that the heat weeks before the fire was ‘unusual’.

He said that on the night of the fire, panic started when the lights went out, and everyone was ‘being crushed’ because there were so many people in there.

‘My worry was not of the fire, it was of being crushed, there were a lot of people in there screaming. The doors were closed, and nobody could move,’ he said.

‘I went up the stairs to the side of the hallway to get out of the crush. It was pitch black, and when I turned around, I saw orange flames coming down from above towards me. I put my hands over my face, then the thick black smoke started to fill the hall.’

Mr Fitzmaurice said that by the time he got to his feet, ‘it seemed the doors just opened’ and he was ‘carried out by the force of people leaving’. ‘I didn’t see them being opened, I just felt the surge of people moving out,’ he said.

A taxi brought him to hospital with another injured youth.

In response to questions from Des Fahy KC, representing ten of the families of the victims, including relatives of Mary and Martina Keegan and David Morton, Mr Fitzmaurice confirmed that the source of the flames he encountered was the ceiling above him on the first landing. He said he believed these flames were stronger than those he had initially seen in the west alcove.

Ms Toner, who was 17 at the time, said in her original statement that she exited through the front door. ‘I could see fellas and girls banging at the windows of the toilets. A couple of fellas got up on the windows on the outside and broke the glass of the windows. I could see people’s hands sticking out through the window,’ she said. ‘Somebody tied ropes around the bars of the toilet window and tied the ropes onto a white van, and they tried to pull the bars off with the van, but the bars didn’t come off.’

In response to questioning from a member of the coroner’s legal team, Gemma McLoughlin-Burke, Ms Toner said she saw ‘a fireball going across the ceiling’ and then the smoke started.

She said that when the lights went out in the hallway, it was ‘horrible’. ‘It was just like a crush, people were falling and helping people up,’ she said.

Ms Toner said that only the lefthand side of the main entrance was open initially, then someone kicked the other door out and ‘people just kind of fell out’.

She said that outside, some people broke the glass in the toilet windows and were shouting at the people inside, who were putting their hands out, and the people outside were telling those inside to put their heads down the toilets. ‘There was pandemonium, and then everything just went quiet. The silence just went through everyone that was outside, the whole place just went deadly quiet, because the hands disappeared and the shouting stopped, and we knew what was basically happening inside,’ said an emotional Ms Toner.

The Stardust inquest continues today in the Pillar Room of the Rotunda Hospital.

‘The shouting stopped’