‘Mammy! Daddy! Help me! Open the doors!’ – desperate cries of the victims

THE EVIDENCE Final words of young people who died in nightclub disaster were heartbreaking and horrifying, writes Catherine Fagan

Sixteen-year-old Martina Keegan had finished work early to make sure she had enough time to get ready for the night ahead. It was Friday, February 13, 1981 and a Valentine’s night disco competition, sponsored by record company K-Tel, had been advertised at the Stardust. All her co-workers from Superquinn, where she had a part-time job, were going, and Martina was desperate to join them. After some deliberation, her parents allowed her to go, but only if her older sisters or brother were going. As Martina got changed into her outfit – a boob-tube top, lurex belt and black trousers, she was giddy with excitement.

“She looked like a movie star,” her sister Lorraine told the Stardust inquests last year.

“All the attention was paid to getting her make-up perfect, her hair, and she was so looking forward to her night out with Mary, Antoinette, Mary Kenny, Helen and meeting up with her boyfriend David. They all left the house so excited.”

As she skipped out the door with her sisters and friends, Martina had a Valentine’s card with her to give to David.

Outside the Stardust, the three Keegan sisters – Martina, Mary and Antoinette – joined the lengthening queue of late teens and early-twentysomethings. Their brother John had tried to get in, but couldn’t. He was a young-looking 17-yearold and the doorman was having none of it. John went home while his sisters and their friends hit the dancefloor.

The next day, floating in water outside the burnt-out Stardust, was Martina’s Valentine’s card for David.

The couple were two of 48 young victims who never made it home that night. In the news reports detailing the horror of what happened in the Stardust, Martina’s card became known as the “Last Valentine”. Inside was a poem she had written, asking God to protect David.

It read: “You know Lord, I love him with all my heart. So keep us together, never to part.”

Seventeen-year-old Robert Kelly was due to work on one of the B&I ferries that week, but it went into dry dock, giving him seven days off. His friend, Paul Nolan, lived next door, so they made their way to the Stardust together.

Robert was refused entry because he looked young. Paul refused to go in without him. They sat on the wall outside for a while, then joined the queue again and were allowed in. They paid their £3 entrance fee, were searched and then went to the bar and bought pints.

The Stardust bouncers were known for being strict – if a gang of lads arrived together, they wouldn’t let them in. The policy was random. Patrons hoped to avoid it by splitting up and meeting again in the foyer, from where they made their way to the ballroom. In other cases, friends pretended to be couples as they stood a better chance. Once inside, they would end the charade. The dress code was also strict. That night, 17-year-old Richard Bennett didn’t have a tie on, so they wouldn’t let him in. Later, when one of the lads was handing ties back out the door, Richard got one and in he went.

Over 800 patrons were admitted to the Stardust that evening, of whom 28 had free tickets. It was meant to be for over-21s, but a large number of boys and girls under that age were admitted. Lorraine Brady was 17 and had been a Stardust regular since she was 16. Like others, she had no difficulty getting in. She had a birthday cake with her to celebrate two of her friends’ eighteenths. If you brought a cake, the club provided champagne.

Some regulars had met up earlier, at about eight or nine o’clock, in the Silver Swan pub next door before heading to the Stardust. The first people started arriving for the disco at that entrance at around 10pm. By 11pm, there was a queue stretching along the front of the building as far as the south-west corner. Joseph O’Connor had been a part-time DJ at the club for around nine months, but was not working that night. He left the club at around 12.30am with his girlfriend, who gave staff member Phelim Kinahan “a piece of her mind” because she could not get out of two exits. Mr O’Connor said chairs were stacked on top of each other and covered both doors of what has been referred to as exit four.

“You couldn’t see the doors, there were so many chairs there,” he said. There was a lock and chain hanging off another exit door, but he said he did not know if it was locked.

Meanwhile, sausages and chips were being served to all the patrons who wanted it. The food was served for just over an hour, from around midnight, and ended at 1.10am. A bar extension, until 1am, had been granted. After it passed and the bar closed, the dancing competition got under way.

When Lorcan Doody left the club at 1am, the main entrance was locked. A doorman told him he would have to wait until another colleague came with keys. He waited about three minutes. When the door was opened, the shutters were down on four panels and about halfway down on one. Mr Doody said the shutter was lifted up to allow him and some friends to step out. When they left, “the key was turned again” and the door was locked.

Back on the floor, 36 competitors were dancing to the disco-hit Born To be Alive. Shortly before 1.30am, DJ Danny Hughes halted the music to announce a boy and a girl had been selected as the winners. Errol Buckley was best of the men. As he stood on the stage, his brother Jimmy jumped up, hugged him and told him how proud he was of him.

“Little did I know, they would be the last words I would ever hear from him,” Errol told the inquests.

Fifteen-year-old Paula McDonnell, from Coolock, was the female winner. She and Errol were invited to perform a victory dance on the stage as the onlookers clapped along to the song. Another DJ, Colm O’Brien, took the microphone and encouraged the audience to join in on the floor. Hundreds danced to what was to be one of the last songs of the night.

“Paula remembers leaving the stage and joining the girls for a celebration dance. Everybody was so happy,” Paula’s niece Pamela told the inquests.

At around 1.30am, David Bell noticed a lock in place on the main door. He could see “the flat of a Chubb lock was across” the door. Meanwhile, at the western side of the ballroom, about 50 people sat or stood around five tables to get a better view of the dancing competition. Behind them was a roller blind – a curtain – made from a PVC-coated polyester fabric. Split into five sections, it was lowered to partition off an alcove of banked seating stretching to and along the side wall. The western alcove itself was the smaller of two such sections in the club. While the attention of most people was directed towards the dance floor, those close to the curtain began to notice a burning smell.

Sharon O’Hanlon, who was 17, looked under the partition, which was still down, and could see some seats on fire. “There was not a lot of smoke. It was just at the back seats,” she said. The fire had not yet ignited the carpet-clad walls. A friend, Valerie Walsh, pushed her back from the table as “pieces” of the ceiling fell over it. “We grabbed our coats and bags” and left, Valerie said.

Linda Bishop was a regular at the Stardust and would have always sat in the area that was closed off that night. It had been particularly cold in the club that night, and she “suddenly got a shudder” when she felt a blast of heat. She looked at her digital watch. It was 1.33am. She then got up and danced “for a couple of minutes” and saw the fire. Her first thought was that “they’ll put it out”.

Frances Winston, who was 17, was the first in her group of friends to smell smoke. They were at a table in front of the partitioned area. Others saw smoke, but thought it was dry ice, which was common in discos.

Most dancers were still unaware of the fire. Donna Mahon (17), from Edenmore, was dancing near the main stage with Emmet Mulvey, also 17, when he noticed the flames. He looked at the “very small” fire in the west alcove area “for about a few seconds, and in that time it had spread up almost to the ceiling” and along the back wall.

“I then pushed Donna Mahon towards the main door and I got her to the cloakroom door,” he said. The music continued to play, and the dancefloor was still crowded.

One of the doormen, PJ Murphy, had just finished an inspection of the western alcove where three female staff members were having their break, but reportedly did not notice anything unusual or alarming. He returned to the door at 1.40am and was there when Jacqueline McCarthy ran out shouting about the fire.

Over the next minute or two, doormen Mr Murphy, Leo Doyle and Michael Kavanagh tried to put out the fire with extinguishers. Barman Laurence Neville went into the Silver Swan and phoned the fire brigade. The call was recorded

“We have a slight problem, don’t panic, walk to the nearest exits” DJ Colm O’Brien

at 1.43am. The doormen were joined by at least one patron and one or two barmen. Inside the alcove, the temperature rose rapidly, forcing them to retreat. As they did so, the flames spread rapidly to other parts of the alcove and at ceiling level into the ballroom itself. At the same time, portions of the ceiling in the alcove began to collapse and clouds of black smoke poured into the ballroom.

As the flames spread, DJ Mr O’Brien lowered the music and announced that “we have a slight problem, don’t panic, walk to the nearest exits” or words to that effect. There was a rush of people towards exits two, five and four, with a particular concentration of people moving in the direction of exit two.

Within the next two or three minutes, smoke and flames swept through the ballroom. Flaming particles fell from the ceiling, landing on tables and seats. Seconds later, a larger portion of the ceiling fell.

Kathleen Deeney saw a cloud of smoke come over the dancefloor. She ended up in a small room without windows that she took to be the cloakroom and her hair was getting singed from the heat. She got outside and saw the main doors were closed. She saw nobody getting out through those doors, but she saw people getting out through another exit.

Ms Deeney was concentrating on getting to exit two when she was knocked to the floor. “I knew I had to get up,” she said. “I must have stepped on people, because when the lights went out you were just in a sheer panic to get out. I knew I was going in the right direction, but when the lights went out, it was mental, it was just awful.” The seats were stuffed with polyurethane, which when on fire can reach over 800C in under a minute. The tables were made of plywood covered in red plastic.

Paul Fitzmaurice had been with Mary and Martina Keegan and David Morton when, at around 1.30am, he saw the fire. He got up to leave and, as he approached the passageway to the main entrance, “panic broke out”. He went up the stairs, but “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 fell back down the stairs.

“My worry was not of the fire, it was of being crushed. There were a lot of people in there screaming,” he said. “The doors were closed, and nobody could move anywhere. As people were coming into the hallway, we were getting pushed and squeezed further and further.” 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”.

By 1.46am, most of the people had headed for the main door. Those who made the seemingly sensible decision to head for one of the five emergency exits would pay dearly. One of those doors was chained and padlocked. Two were obstructed by skips or tables or, in one case, a van. Others appeared to be locked, with chains draped across the push-bars. This had allegedly been done on Stardust manager Eamon Butterly’s orders to discourage people inside from letting their friends in. By now, there was pandemonium as frantic teenagers heaved against the chained doors.

Noel Quigley had previously worked as a bouncer at the Stardust. Earlier that night, he found three of the six emergency exits locked when he tried to let his friend in for free.

“I paid in through exit two and then went to exit three to open it. This is an emergency exit with push-bar locks. There was a chain and padlock on this exit. I was surprised at this because when I worked at the Stardust, the practice was to take the padlock and chains off the doors before the dance started. I went up to exit six. I tried to open this door. This door is an emergency exit with push-bar locks. There was a padlock and chain on these doors also.”

He saw anther exit locked and furniture obstructing yet another. In the end, he paid for his friend to get in.

Nicholas Prior, who was 18, worked as a lounge boy in the Silver Swan, which was part of the Stardust complex, for “less than a year” in 1979. He said the exits were “always locked”. He had been dancing with friends when they “noticed something happening” near the West Alcove area.

“There was a loud bang and then the lights went out and in those minutes we made our way across towards to the exit,” he said. “Because I’d worked there, I knew the layout. I looked over at the main exit. There could have been 100 people, maybe more, trying to get out. That’s why we ran across towards the other exits. While we were making our way across, the ceiling tiles were falling down, on fire. The next thing I knew, we were out through the door. I looked back and seen smoke coming out through the door.”

A number of people found their way into the toilets in the Stardust. They did so in some cases because they mistook them for exits; others sought refuge from the smoke and heat in the ballroom; some were brought or dragged in by other people.

Patrick Behan headed for the toilets with the idea of making it out a window, but “it was like a prison. I couldn’t get out”. A girl was trapped in the toilet with him. Amid the chaos, he started to recite the Hail Mary and the Act of Contrition into her ear. “We were in a roasting oven,” he said.

Eileen Rock heard the screams for help from the toilets and the attempts to smash the windows. People were pulling on the canopy, swinging on it, trying to kick in the window, but to no avail.

About six weeks before the fire, steel plates had been welded to the inside of thetoiletwindowsfor“securitypurposes”.

Paula Toner, who was 17, managed to flee through the front door. “I could see fellas and girls banging at the windows of the toilets,” she said. “A couple of fellas got up on the windows on the outside and broke the glass. I could see people’s hands sticking out through the window. Somebody tied ropes around the bars of the toilet window and tied the ropes on to a white van, and they tried to pull the bars off with the van, but the bars didn’t come off.”

Only the left side of the main entrance was open initially, then someone kicked the other door out and “people just kind of fell out”.

“There was pandemonium, and then everything just went quiet,” Ms Toner said. “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.”

Mark Swaine, who was 18, and his girlfriend went towards exit three. “There were five or six fellas in front of me and two or three girls,” he said. “They were shouting, ‘Get that chain off the door for f**k’s sake’. They were kicking the door.” The exit burst open and there was a van parked with its rear almost flush with steps. Mr Swaine said: “I was squashed against the van and I pushed my girlfriend off the wall. We were knocked to the ground in the rush and eventually both of us got clear.”

He tried to break windows. “I saw girls’ hands in the windows pressing against it. We were trying to break windows because there was people trying to get out. There was wrought iron kind of bars, a bit of mesh, but there was no way.”

At the main exit he saw people coming out “on fire, smouldering, their clothes were kind of burnt on to them”.

Patricia O’Connor, who was 16, was there with her friend, Caroline Carey (17), who was pregnant. Ms Carey was ‘grounded’ that night and Ms O’Connor went to her home and spoke to her mother, who let her go.

When Ms O’Connor first saw the fire, it was small, but “within seconds” the place went into darkness and she was enveloped by smoke. “I could barely breathe,” she said. There were drops falling from the ceiling, “like tar and oil”. It was not the fire that burned her, it was the drops, “all over me”.

She could hear people screaming: “Mammy! Daddy! Help me! Open the doors!”

The Keegan sisters, Martina and Antoinette, were in the habit of buying something new for their nights out at the Stardust. Just before the Valentine’s disco, Martina bought two blouses – one red, the other white. When Antoinette had nothing new to wear that night, Martina offered to lend her the new white blouse.

Antoinette had been dancing some time after 1.30am when she saw flames.

“The place was covered in thick black smoke,” she said. “It was everywhere, and choking everyone. We couldn’t breathe, and then the fire was flying across the ceiling and falling down on top of us. The ceiling was collapsing.”

Her group was “about six feet away” from exit four when they were pushed to the ground. “I remember looking up and seeing people couldn’t open the doors and the heat was getting so intense,” Antoinette said. “I remember a ball of flame coming towards us and I put my hands over my head. I saw a person in a ball of flames under the table and they just kept rolling over screaming.”

As the toxic fumes overcame them, Antoinette held Martina’s hand tightly because she had promised her parents she would look after her 16-year-old sister.

In the middle of all the horror, Thomas Larkin was able to focus on the white blouse Antoinette had on. He had to kick Antoinette’s hand out of her sister’s hand to free her and get her out.

Louise Murray, then 17, said flames that shot across the ballroom ceiling were “nearly like someone in the circus put petrol in their mouth and they’d just blown out – whoosh – across the ceiling”. She ended up in a dressing room.

After a while in the darkness, she began to recite the Our Father, and said: “Please, whoever is in here, please join me.” The young people trapped in the room also began to pray.

“As soon as the prayer was over, the door was kicked in,” she said. “All I could see was a big, bright light and a big buckle, on the belt of the fireman, and he said, ‘Whoever is in here, can you come out?’”

When the first fire engine arrived at 1.51am, the crews found bodies stacked on top of each other inside the doors, only inches from safety.

As day dawned, bodies, some still smouldering, were brought from the burning ballroom, placed on the ground and hosed by firefighters. Charred remains covered with grey blankets were carried on stretchers to ambulances. People were crying and supporting others unable to walk. Frantic family members were searching for their loved ones.

In the eight minutes that followed barman Laurence Neville calling 999, 44 young people had been killed and 214 injured. Four more would die later in hospital, including 18-year-old butcher Liam Dunne, and Carol Bissett, also 18.

Mr Dunne would live for a month, his lungs destroyed, communicating with his family by moving his eyebrows. He died on March 11, officially the last victim of the Stardust disaster.

This is an abridged version of an article that was published on the Irish Independent website