Charles Haughey and Stardust: Why son Seán’s words of regret for ‘fraught’ relationship with families hit a nerve

Former taoiseach failed to deliver for the victims of the 1981 fire tragedy

Ionce convinced a Kerry music shop owner to risk jail for contempt of court by selling me a banned Christy Moore album. The heady events of the last week – with a 43-year delayed state apology to victims and bereaved in the Stardust horror of Valentine’s night, 1981 – mean I can pinpoint the actual date we both quietly colluded to defy the law.

It was Saturday, August 10, 1985, and the day after the High Court ruled that the most heartfelt song on Moore’s Ordinary Man album – They Never Came Home – was itself in contempt of court.

I mention this now only to evoke the official response to the Stardust victims four years after one of the worst travesties in the State’s history.

At issue were the lyrics: “In a matter of minutes confusion did reign/ The room was in darkness, fire exits were chained.”

The album was withdrawn as the judge ruled those lyrics could prejudice future litigation involving the Stardust owners, the Butterly family, and the survivors.

Strangely, paragraph 8.31 of the report of a Stardust inquiry tribunal, issued in November 1981, found the Stardust’s proprietor’s practice of keeping fire exits locked and chained until midnight on disco nights was “a recklessly dangerous practice which regularly endangered the lives of over 1,000 people”.

Later, in paragraph 9.39 of the same Stardust report, chaired by Mr Justice Ronan Keane, four reasons were cited why “a prompt and efficient evacuation of the building did not take place”.

These reasons included the locked and obstructed condition of certain exits. To this day, I ponder why these facts could not be succinctly relayed in a Christy Moore ballad.

On the night of the Stardust fire, then taoiseach Charles Haughey was hosting 8,000 delegates at his Fianna Fáil party’s ard fheis at the RDS, in Ballsbridge.

Across the city, 800 youngsters were crowding into the Stardust nightclub in Artane, in the heart of Haughey’s own Dáil constituency.

The taoiseach learned of the Stardust horror as he was being driven home from the RDS accompanied by his trusty adviser, PJ Mara.

Gardaí and officials gave him an updated briefing and he went to the Mater Hospital. There, Haughey was met by another lieutenant, Bertie Ahern, a former hospital administrator. They wisely soon left the chaos and anguish, and given the monumental tragedy, Haughey also on the next day quietly wound up the ard fheis, to reconvene weeks later in April 1981.

Haughey was politically very embattled at that time, a controversial new leader since late 1979, whom heavy-hitting party opponents wanted to oust. But to give another flavour of the early 1980s, I surveyed up to 10 books yesterday about politics and history, and most made only glancing references to the impact of the Stardust incident.

Several writers, perhaps clumsily or accidentally, noted that the timing was part of a run of Haughey bad luck which culminated in him losing power in June 1981 to Fine Gael’s Garret FitzGerald. Some contemporary writers noted that Haughey was on the up at that “Stardust ard fheis” but the one reconvened in April was dominated by the IRA hunger strikes which set a tone for election defeat.

Professor Gary Murphy, in his 2021 biography Haughey, stresses that Charles Haughey was profoundly upset by the Stardust tragedy. “The appalling loss of life had a devastating impact on Haughey. He knew many of the victims personally. One of the injured was 19-year-old Walter Byrne, a stable boy at Abbeville, (the Haughey demesne),” Murphy writes.

There is little doubt that this was completely true – but only in so far as it went. Haughey was the consummate local politician who knew his constituents and worked his patch, learning to be a big vote-getter.

When Haughey’s son Seán stood up in the Dáil last week just minutes after Taoiseach Simon Harris’s formal state apology, there were confused and angry glances among relatives of the victims. They understood that he would be present for the occasion but couldn’t understand why he felt the need to inject himself into the middle of it. His contribution was totally unexpected.

The controversy turns largely on Charles Haughey’s failure to match his empathy with the victims to practical actions on redress.

Seán Haughey said that he genuinely believed he pursued the issues posed by the Stardust relatives’ committee.

“If I’m honest though, this was not enough. I also admit that my relations with the committee were, at times, fraught and I do regret that,” he said.

Stardust survivor Antoinette Keegan said that a “lot of the families” were annoyed about him speaking. “It wasn’t his place here today,” Ms Keegan said.

A similar apology by long-time local Fine Gael TD and former minister, Richard Bruton, was also brushed aside, but not as vehemently.

Seán Haughey’s candour may have compounded things – but it was also provoked by the inquiry put in place by his father.

That tribunal of inquiry, commissioned by Charles Haughey, and overseen by Mr Justice Keane, concluded that “the more probable explanation of the fire is that it was caused deliberately”.

Judge Keane, a future chief justice, was the estranged husband of Haughey’s lover of 27 years, the late Terry Keane.

Ms Keegan said Charles Haughey had caused a lot of damage when he called for a tribunal on the day her sisters Mary and Martina were being buried.

The main arson finding – despite the citations of chained and obstructed exits, and other sharp criticisms of the local council and environment department – opened the way for the Stardust owners, the Butterly family, to eventually claim €580,000 in compensation.

The Butterly family were heavily involved with Fianna Fáil, with the family patriarch, Patrick Butterly, a member of Taca, the party’s notorious fundraising wing, and a local supporter of Charles Haughey.

In his memoir, Mr Butterly noted of Fianna Fáil and his role with Taca that: “What you had these people for was to help get things. If you wanted someone who could do something… you asked these people.”

‘On the night of the fire, Haughey was hosting 8,000 delegates at Fianna Fáil party ard fheis’